


Killing Strangers

by casstayinmyass



Category: Marilyn Manson (Band), Rock Music RPF
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bathtub Sex, Blood and Violence, Cock Warming, Codenames, Codes & Ciphers, Daddy Kink, Dark, Drunken Kissing, Espionage, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Floor Sex, Gun Kink, Gun Violence, Kidnapping, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Power Kink, Public Blow Jobs, Public Hand Jobs, Recreational Drug Use, Reunions, Rock Star Cameos, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Sugar Daddy, Thoughts of infidelity, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, cute cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:41:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casstayinmyass/pseuds/casstayinmyass
Summary: Manson is a dangerous man with secretive toys, a secretive past, and skeletons in his closet. It's the two of you against the world-- that is, when he lets you in on the secret.
Relationships: Marilyn Manson/Reader
Comments: 29
Kudos: 53





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This is originally on my tumblr, under the fic name 'The Pale Emperor'!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter: Killing Strangers

It’s midnight in Stuttgart, Germany.

You spread out on the chaise lounge, your dress riding up to your knee as you rest your head in your arms and watch the lights of the city blink. It’s beautiful here.

Your boyfriend is an assassin working for a non-government branch, and has got three different places, in different spots. The first one is a penthouse in New York City, upper Manhattan. The second is, as he likes to call it, ‘homebase’, in Los Angeles, a hilltop mansion with bulletproof gates. He’s been spending the most time here in the German penthouse lately, having left behind much of his work in LA.

You rise from the chaise, dress brushing the floor as you walk over to the bookcase. He’s got a single photograph connecting him to anything he’s done in the past, and it’s a photo of him ten years ago, and five other men, all dressed in black suits. 

That had been the dream team: the Antichrist Syndicate. It had started with his partner Jeordie, codename Twiggy, who used to run with Manson in the early days of the business. Then Kenneth, codename Ginger, John, codename 5, Stephen, codename Pogo, Skold, codename Arctic Wolf, and finally, your boyfriend: Brian Warner, codename Manson, the Pale Emperor. They had all worked for an international organization for undercover peacekeeping, called Interscope, under a philanthropist named Trent. They did good, keeping secrets, taking out high profile people. Trent ran a tight business, no loose ends. Then after Mission Grotesque, a particularly bloody affair in Berlin, they parted ways. 

5 left first, then Pogo, then Skold, and finally Ginger decided it was time to leave as well. Ginger and 5 had teamed up again in some kind of partnership somewhere across the world in Romania, Pogo had left the life for good (and had probably gotten killed for it by now), nobody really knew what happened to Twiggy, and Skold had gone rogue, become a ghost, a gun for hire.

Manson would have done the same, if becoming a lone wolf wasn’t so unreliable. He liked the benefits he got from working under contract, which meant he could provide for you, keep you safe, keep you under protection when he wasn’t around to look after you. The Loma Vista organization under Bates paid him good, and made it clear that you and he would both be untraceable.

You adjust the framed photograph, dusting it off with your fingertips. Manson played it like he didn’t give a shit about anything or any of those ‘backstabbing assholes’, but you could read him well enough to know he missed those days sometimes.

You walk over to the bar in the penthouse, pouring yourself another cosmo. You had been a bartender before Manson had picked you up in that club those years ago, so you knew how to mix a good one. You run your fingers down your neck to your diamond dagger-shaped necklace, smiling. It felt good knowing how much he cared for you. The danger of his job was all worth it—you would kill for him, and he would do the same.

You walk back over to the window, and sigh. The cars passing below look like small fairy lights, dancing in the blur of the night, and your eyes in the glass reflection mirror the stars.

Suddenly, all the lights go out. You swish your drink, letting the lit up city illuminate its path up to your lips.

“There’s an intruder in the house,” you remark dryly, “Whatever will I do?”

“Beg for mercy,” Manson’s voice growls behind you, and fingers wrap around the back of your neck. You take another sip of your pink drink, blinking your eyelashes.

“You gonna choke me, daddy?”

He hums, vibrations rumbling against your back. “I’ve gotten too used to having you around. I’d probably go crazy without you.” Instead of choking you as some lethal assailant in the night may have, he begins massaging you instead. “You haven’t been relaxing. You’re stiff, sweetheart.” You reach back, hand finding his crotch.

“And you’re not.” You turn around, looking up at him teasingly. “That’s a problem.” He turns the lights back on, smirking as the shoulders of your dress fall down your back.

“We won’t have to worry about that for long.” He walks over to fix himself a drink, undoing his top two buttons to reveal the tattoos on his chest. “What’d you do today, babygirl?”

“Made sure nobody broke in and killed me,” you smile sweetly, sauntering by him. You hum, and look at his gun cabinet as you pass it. “That gets me wondering…”

“Mm,” he mumbles, half listening as he downs his glass of vodka and pours himself another. You watch him, biting your lip. His black shards of hair are in his eyes, and his cuff links have the slightest trace of dried blood on them. It makes you wet imagining how it got there.

Turning to the cabinet your curiosity had brought you to, you unlatch it, and take a small gun out. You make sure to attach the silencer, as you’d seen Manson do a million times, and close the cabinet door softly. Walking back over to the living room, you stand across from the west wall. 

Looking around, you aim at a plate on the shelf across the room, and pull the trigger. It instead blows a hole through a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and Manson looks up from where he’s cutting lines.

“Mind telling me why you’re shooting up the place?”

“I’m practicing,” you shush him, getting up and inspecting the smoking bullet hole, “What am I going to do when you’re away one day and some thug comes in, trying to kidnap me to get to you?” He stares at you through dark eyes, taking a sip of his vodka. You go on. “Picture it. Bates sends you off to Hong Kong to kill some arms dealer who wouldn’t pay. I’m here… all alone… dressed like I am…” You inch your dress up your leg, and his eyes dart down, following the hike of your skirt.

“So, you wanna protect yourself with a gun?” he muses, using a rolled up hundred to snort his lines. “How patriotic.”

“Fuck off.” You lick your matte red lips. “If you get to play with guns, so should I.”

A smug smirk dances on his lips as he admires your form. At least your breasts are being pushed together nicely the way you’re holding that pistol. “Uh huh. Have some of this.”

“I’m _busy_.”

He walks over to the couch, and sits behind you with his drink, watching. “Okay. Try again.”

You look at him, then back at your target: the damn plate.

He settles in, elbows on his knees, and watches your finger stroke the trigger. “Careful, angel. Aim nice and close.” You close one eye, and pull the trigger. Manson cringes as you blow his first edition Alistair Crowley book away.

He gets up, sighing, and sets his drink down. “You wanna learn how to do what I do?” he mumbles in your ear. He presses his weight up against you from behind, and wraps his arms around you, rolling up his sleeves. His hand encompasses yours, tattooed fingers making sure your grip is right. “Here’s what I do.” He jerks your arm, shooting the plate. Then he shoots a cross pattern into the wall behind it, with four bullet holes, and strokes his hand down your hip. You moan gently, and he pauses. “Oh. You like that?”

“Mhm,” you nod, and he brushes your hair aside, holding your shoulder.

“Your turn.” You aim, and he holds your hand again, steady. “Shoot,” he whispers, pointing just past you, “ _Here_. And the world’ll get smaller, sweetheart.”

His voice is like sandpaper honeyed over. You lean back into him, and his hand finds your breast, massaging it as you try to aim. You give up a few seconds later, and he guides the gun down between your breasts, down your stomach, and slides your dress up your thigh.

“Please,” you whisper, and he dips the barrel of the gun into your black lace panties.

“I fucking wanted you all week,” he growls in your ear, “It killed me being away from you.”

“You could’ve called me.”

He drags the gun up and down. “I don’t have enough burner phones for how many times I had to jack off thinking of you.”

You shiver, reaching back to palm him. He’s half hard in his pants, and you want more. “What did you think of?”

“You, putting on a little show for me. Those gorgeous eyes, staring up at me like I’m the world while you suck my cock like it’s all you live for.”

“Oh,” you breathe, and he massages your other breast, starting to move the gun against your clit.

“You look good holding a gun, babygirl. Aim and show daddy just how good you are.” He gives you the gun, but you drop it and press your lips to his. He walks you back into the floor to ceiling glass windows, and tears your dress, letting it fall around your ankles.

“I liked that dress,” you pout.

“Fuck the dress,” he mutters, and turns you around so you’re facing the building opposite you. You’re only in black pantyhose and a black push up bra, otherwise exposed. He sinks his teeth into your shoulder, his grill making the mark even more pronounced, and you purr, grinding back against him. He grinds his cock into your ass for a moment, just reveling in the sound of your soft moans growing in volume.

He finally pulls your panties down, and positions himself, slowly sinking into you. You gasp, palms splaying out over the window. He grunts once he’s all the way in, then starts up a pace. You grind back into every thrust, and he holds you around your middle, slapping your ass with his hips every time he pounds in.

“You know, if someone broke in, you could just fuck them to distract them until I got back. Your pussy could send a man to an early grave.”

Angrily, you shove back against the window so that both of you fall to the floor, and you get back on top of him. He holds your hips, mouth falling open and head falling back as you start to ride him hard into the floor.

“Babyg… ah, ah… ah…”

“You like that?” you circle your hips, slamming down, “Huh? Mister tough hitman, scary pale emperor, thinks I can’t protect myself. You like feeling my wet little cunt around you? Guess who’s on top of who?!”

“Fuck,” he groans, and you put your forearms on either side of his head, dragging your breasts up over his face.

“I’m close,” you whisper, “Oh god.” He holds you tighter, reaching up your rib cage to grope your breasts and suck your nipples.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Cum on my fucking cock,” he sneers, “Do it, I know you want it.”

“Manson,” you moan, and he rocks you through your orgasm from beneath. When he knows you’re done, he flips you over, roughly pounding into you a few times before his hips stutter and he swears again, finishing inside you.

He catches his breath, and kisses your forehead, rolling over beside you. His hair is messed up, eyeshadow smudged over half-lidded eyes. 

“I’m sorry about the dress, babygirl. I’ll buy you a new one. Pretty one, just like that one, hm?”

“Thank you,” you whisper, crossing your leg with his. He holds onto your leg, chest rising and falling. You two finally rise, and you pull your panties up, so your lingerie set is at least complete to walk around in.

“Now. About this gun thing.” He runs his hand through his hair, and picks it up. “Why don’t we practice on something useful?”

He points out the window at the neighbor he absolutely despises. The guy has his Christmas tree decked out in LED blinking lights that never seem to go out, and while the building across from you seems like it’s miles away, it hasn’t stopped irking either of you.

“Kill Griswold over there.”

“I can’t kill him!”

“Your aim is fine.”

“I bet you I can’t.”

“I bet you can, and whoever is wrong has to give the other person… four straight hours of oral sex.”

You sigh, and aim the gun. “What about the windows, genius?” His hands find your hips, and he holds his hands together in front of you, resting his forearms on your curves. He lays his head in the nape of your neck, watching with you.

“We’ll replace them tomorrow, with your dress.”

“You think it’s smart to leave the penthouse of a contract killer wide open all night?”

“If anybody comes to get us, I know who’s gonna protect me.” He nudges you with his head. “Shoot the motherfucker.”

You pull the trigger, and hit the poor guy’s power box. His tree goes up in flames, and you stifle a laugh. You two watch as he comes storming into his living room, and looks over, trying to find who did it in a sea of tiny apartment lights. He finally looks all the way up at you two. Manson waves, grinning, and you blow him a kiss.

“My nasty little femme fatale,” he mumbles into your neck. He saunters over to the chaise, sitting back, and you sit on his lap, slinging your legs sideways over his. 

“When’s your next job?” you ask, taking a sip from his tumbler of vodka. He plays with a lock of your hair.

“Next month. Contract in Berlin.”

 _Berlin. That’s…_ “That’s not far,” you murmur, mouthing kisses along the corner of his mouth, playing with the last few done up buttons above his navel. You trace the long upside down cross he’s got tattooed there.

“Mmm,” Manson agrees, fondly stroking up and down your arms. “I think we should get a cat. We can pawn it off on Bates when we leave.” He idly looks back at the picture frame on the shelf, staring for longer than usual. You follow his line of sight, and try to think of the best way to say it.

“Maybe… he doesn’t want to be found, babe.” Manson looks back to you.

“Good. I hope the fucker stays lost.”

Snuggling into him on the couch, listening to the late night Stuttgart traffic from the open air where your window used to be, you feel his heartbeat pick up a little. No matter how much he tried to deny it, the mystery was weighing on him.

_After Mission Grotesque, where had his old partner disappeared to?_


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter: Kill4Me

Early evening is the best time to fly, Manson always told you.

His logic seems to be that you can tease people who want to shoot your plane down by flying in the daylight, but when dusk sets in and they’ve got their guns out, they won’t be able to find you. Just brilliant.

You sit with your legs crossed, a tiny white cat sitting on your lap. Manson appeared, by all standards, to be a black cat person, but white cats, he said, represent what he wants, not what he is.

Plus, this one was fucking cute.

_“A cat,” Bates had said after the request, and frowned. “Is he high?”_

_Manson called his response from another room. “Yes I am, thank you, and being under the influence only confirms my need for companionship.”_

_“He’s just mad I didn’t suck his dick tonight,” you roll your eyes to the video-call screen, and Bates smirks._

_“And a cat will?”_

_“I expect it on my doorstep by tomorrow!” Manson says, walking back into the living room. “Tomorrow, you motherfucker!”_

_“I just had your window fixed, and now you want a cat?” Bates mutters._

_“Pretty please?” you ask, and blink your eyelashes. Bates sighs._

_“One black cat, coming up.”_

_“White,” Manson had corrected, his voice sounding strangely small as a haunted look overcame him. “Just like Lily.”_

“You look like a sexy Bond villain,” Manson tells you. You smirk at him.

“Does that make you James Bond?”

“No, it makes me the guy with three nipples. You know, from The Man with the Golden Dick?”

“That would be Golden Gun.”

“If it was about me, it would be Golden Dick.”

The cat meows, turning around in your lap a few times before settling down again. Manson’s watching her like a hawk, not getting any work done. This one was just like his cat that he had for eleven years, Lily White. She had passed away shortly before you and Manson had gotten together, so you never got to meet her. But you had seen pictures, and had heard endless stories. She was his heart and soul, before you came along.

“My little Peruvia,” he whispers, leaning forward. “So, so pretty. Pretty little kit-ty.” Ruvi darts forward, licking his nose with a sandpaper tongue, and you could swear you see tears gather in your boyfriend’s eyes. Before he starts crying then blocks himself off completely for the rest of the day to compensate, you guide the cat back to your lap.

“How much longer until we get to Berlin?” you ask, stroking between the sweet kitty’s ears.

“Five hours,” he replies, taking a sip of his drink, “Lotsa time to drink, fuck, and be merry.” You clink your glass with his, and a call comes in. Manson taps a button, and Bates’ face shows up on a screen beside you two.

“Hello, hello.”

“Hey handsome,” Manson mumbles, and Bates chuckles.

“Enjoying the flight?”

“Yeah. This new?” Manson looks around, “I don’t think we’ve ever flown on one of these before, hm?” You shake your head in agreement.

“It’s a new jet, yes. No worries of engine failure, since it’s operated remotely and with 100 percent ground control.”

“That would explain why there’s no pilot,” you nod, looking behind you.

“Oh, is that a thing?” Manson whispers, “I thought it was just me who couldn’t see him.” You frown, glancing in suspicion at his drink.

“I see the cat’s warmed to you,” Bates raises an eyebrow.

“She’s our pride and joy,” you smile, and Ruvi gives a contented purr. “I didn’t want to bring her along, but Brian insisted.”

“She gave me the eyes! She _wanted_ to come!”

“Now, Manson. I wanted to check in on you about the job,” Bates says, “I know you’ve got some history in Berlin.” 

“Yes. Berlin is full of history, it’s a very historical place.”

“You know what I mean.”

Manson shrugs it off, staring off for a second. “I’m not scared of ghosts, Bates. This is a new era.”

Bates nods, taking that as his final word on the subject, and turns to you. “(y/n). Make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.” You share an insider’s smile with Manson, and Bates signs off. Ruvi hops into Manson’s lap, and he sets his drink aside, welcoming her. “Why can’t you be that affectionate with me?” you complain. He looks up at you.

“You start licking my nose, I’ll start cuddling you,” he retorts. You stand, smirking.

“Open your legs, daddy. I can lick something a lot better.”

Just then, the lights around you begin to flicker in the jet. Manson’s eyes widen, and you rush forward toward him.

“What’s—”

The lights go out, plunging you into complete darkness, and the plane starts to drop. Manson’s arm encircles you as best it can, and you both brace for impact.

A sharp crack rings out, and you feel the jet lurch forward, sending you both into the ceiling. Once the dust has settled, Manson crawls over to you, swearing under his breath, and checks you. You’re out cold, and he slaps your face a little.

“Wake up, princess.” He glares down at you. “Don’t make me kiss you.”

Your eyes open, and you groan. Then both of your eyes widen.

_“Peruvia!”_

You look around, and the kitty emerges, hissing at the wall of the plane as if scolding it for dropping out of the sky. Manson picks her up, kissing her all over.

“Aw. You’ve got a little attitude. Just like your mother!”

You scowl at him.

The three of you look out of the crashed plane, and see that you’ve fallen into a large, dead oak tree. That must have been what broke the fall. Manson jumps out first with his briefcase and your bags, and you take Ruvi in your arms, jumping with her. Manson catches you, and sets you down.

“Where are we?” you whisper, shivering. You’re only in a black pantsuit, no coat. Manson checks his phone.

“We’re in a dead zone. There’s no goddamn signal.”

“That must’ve been what killed the plane,” you nudge him, “Remember what Bates said?” 

“100 percent ground control,” Manson scoffs, “Great idea, Bates.”

“There’s a house over there,” you whisper, pointing. He looks, and the two of you see a derelict old farmhouse, that looks abandoned.

“We’ve gotta stay warm somehow, til the genius sends us a new plane,” Manson mutters, taking out his gun, and you two start walking. Once you make it over to the house, you look around.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s lived here for years,” you mention. Manson inspects the door, the cracking wood and the peeling paint surrounding a worn brass doorknob. Then he sees something.

“(y/n), get away from the house.”

Without questioning him, you do so. He knocks softly around the doorknob, and when he hears a hollow area, he shoots there, and kicks it in.

“Stay here,” he says, and walks in, gun cocked in front of his face. After he’s gone from sight, you approach the door, looking for what he found. You’re about to give up your search before you notice a small symbol carved in: an upside down cross with two strikes through the bottom instead of one.

Inside, Manson cautiously takes a few steps. He steps over the trip wire, and is careful to step around the newer-looking floorboard.

“I got guests.”

Manson starts to turn, but is met with a shotgun whack to the face. You hear the commotion, and step inside.

“Baby--?” With another smack, you’re down as well.

* * *

You come to in the dim, dingy basement of whatever house you and Manson had found. Beside you, he’s still out. 

“What’s your name?” the man who had put you there asks, grinning. He takes a swig from a can of beer, and runs a hand over his closely buzzed hair, stroking his grizzled 5 o clock shadow. You refuse to answer him, but that doesn’t stop his creepy smile. He finishes the can, crushes it, and opens another. In a flash of white, he’s got a cat in his lap.

“Ruvi,” you breathe, cursing your willpower and wishing you hadn’t let Manson convince you to bring her along.

“ _Ruvi_. Nice name. I mean, I wouldn’t have picked it, but--”

Manson begins to wake up. “What the fuck are you doing with my cat, asshole?”

The man blinks over. “Absolutely nothing. I like cats. But I don’t… like people intruding on my fucking property.”

“You sound like a grumpy old coot,” Manson croaks, “I always knew you would turn out like this.”

“EXCUSE ME?!” the guy asks, cocking his gun.

“Don’t,” you hiss.

“Pogo, you sick asshole, it’s me!”

Both you and your kidnapper frown. Then it begins to dawn on him.

“Manson?” Manson nods once, spitting out blood. “But you… what happened to your hair?!” He ruffles his own non-existent locks to make his point.

“I chopped it off, what does it look like?” Manson mutters, and shakes said strands of black hair from his eyes. “You grew some. Your head no longer looks like the tip of a dick.”

“What is going on?” you cut in, “Who is this?”

“Stephen Bier,” he shakes your hand, looking you up and down, “Aka Pogo, best former hacker in the business.”

“What the fuck happened to you?” Manson mutters, “I thought you were dead.”

“What happened to _me_?!” Pogo retorts, “Look at you! You used to be thin as a rake!”

“That’s because my three meals a day were comprised of cocaine, coca cola, and methamphetamines.” 

“So now you’re sober?”

“No, I just learned that all those are lovely paired with actual food.” He readjusts in the old wooden chair he had been put in. “You look like a sorry, beat up old alcoholic.”

That must be a sore subject, since something darkened in Pogo’s eyes. “It’s impossible trying to live a normal life with the government trying to take you in and throw you in jail.”

Manson blinks. “What?”

“They’re watching, man,” Pogo says, slurring his words slightly as he finishes off his second beer can, “They’ve always been watching. We’re all stars in their dope show.”

“What the hell are you—”

“I could feel them, they knew who I was, they were coming for me. So I had to hide. Go off the grid. There’s no power, no satellite, no nothing out here. Just me and all my guns. Waiting for fuckers like you, ghosts from my past come back to fuck with me.”

“Right,” Manson sighs, and looks over to you. “Well, you killed our plane. So. Boom, that kinda wasn’t our fault.”

Pogo looks fascinated. “How did I do that?”

“It was remote control,” you smile sweetly, “Like a fucking drone.”

“Exciting,” Pogo mumbles, as if to himself, “I could reprogram it myself if I wanted to.”

“You’re not touching our plane,” Manson stands up, “We’ve gotta send for a new one. Until then, we’re gonna use your house.”

“Like hell,” Pogo stands up too, and Manson puts a gun to his head, kicking the man to the floor.

“I wanted to do this ten years ago.” He cocks the gun, but Pogo screams.

“WAIT!” His eyes dart up to meet Manson’s. “I know where Twiggy is!”

Manson’s face changes. He drops the gun immediately, and his red lips part. You run over to him, taking his arm. Pogo seems relieved, and collapses back against the wall.

You and Manson walk as fast as you can across the property. You’re carrying Ruvi close in your arms, (not a chance in hell you’re leaving her along in that booby-trapped old death house) and he’s got his phone out, waiting to see when he’ll be back on the grid. Pogo follows behind you both.

“You’re attracting international attention to my hideout!” he shouts at you two, “Maybe even interplanetary!”

Manson shoots once toward the sky. “Come get him, aliens.”

_“God dammit--!”_

The signal comes back. Suddenly in a hot blast, Pogo’s house explodes behind you. Pogo whips around, and drops to his knees.

“Bates,” you sigh, and pull out your vibrating phone. Manson snatches it, answering the video call.

“What the actual fuckin’ balls?! Tyler! We could’ve been in there!”

“But you weren’t,” Bates says calmly. “I was monitoring yours and (y/n)’s thermals through your wrist guards. I realized by your vitals when you were knocked out that the person you had run into wasn’t, in fact, friendly. Was the assailant who kidnapped you in the house when we threw the grenades in?”

“No, I was the fuck not!” Pogo shouts at him, walking over, “You asshole bastard!”

“I see,” Bates says, and out of nowhere, a sniper strike sends Pogo to the ground. The balding man clutches his bleeding shoulder, and Manson actually starts giggling. You look around in the dark, trying to find the sniper.

“Bates, any other day I would appreciate this, and I,” he pauses to laugh, “I’d buy you a drink for it—I still will-- but this son of a bitch on the ground is useful to me at the moment.”

“Great way to talk about the guy who hacked you out of jail in Jerusalem,” Pogo gasps, and Manson kicks him.

“I broke myself out, you dick. You just helped.”

The two of you get Pogo inside what the two of you are lucky he had: an underground bunker.

“Of course you have a bunker,” Manson mutters, “Paranoid motherfucker.”

“Stop calling me names before I shoot you.”

“Mhm, says the man who’ll probably never be able to use his right arm again.”

He uses his good arm to give the finger, and chug some more beer. “Fuuuuck you.”

You set your cat down on the carpet of the bunker, and Pogo lumbers off to fix his shoulder. Before he goes though, he pauses at the door frame of the bedroom.

“Brian. Jeordie’s gonna bring you nothing but bad luck,” he says, in a moment of sobered lucidity, “When I bring you to him? What you’ll get caught up in will ruin this whole thing.” He gestures to you. “Whatever life you’ve got going here with her. Gone. Like that.” He snaps his fingers, and the cynicism crawls back into his eyes, poisoning them. “Then again. You always did enjoy wrecking a good thing.”

Ruvi settles in on the bed, licking herself like it’s the most enjoyable pastime. Manson is quiet for a long while, watching her with the same adoration in his eyes he denies looking at you with. It makes your heart ache for him.

You head into the bathroom for a shower, and emerge in a black satin nightgown you had packed for what should have been a good time tonight in Berlin. Manson must have read your thoughts. He feels up your leg as you walk past him.

“You know… we can make our own fun here, you hot piece'a ass.” 

“What did he mean?” you counter, slipping into bed next to your boyfriend, “When he said those things about your partner?”

He watches your nightie drop down your shoulder, exposing the tops of your breasts. “It doesn’t matter,” he whispers.

“And… everything he said about you?”

“You know me,” he whispers, trailing his hand down your body, “You knew what you were getting into with me. You were damaged, but not all the way broken when I met you at that bar.”

“Mmm…” you moan, as he dips his fingers between your legs.

“I like you damaged,” he groans in your ear, starting to fill you with his fingers. “But I needed something left. Something for me…” he nips at your ear, pressing kisses down your jaw line, “Something for me to wreck.”

“Oh,” you gasp, and he turns you around so that your back is to him under the covers. You grind back to feel his cock hard, and he slips his fingers back into your wetness, drawing more soft, hurried breaths out of you.

“I wanna fuck you,” he growls in your ear.

“Then do it,” you moan, and he takes his cock out of his boxers, lifting your leg up to fit himself in. You both sigh in relief when he pushes in, and he keeps his hand over your mouth as he fucks in. The angle is amazing, him reaching your sweet spot perfectly, and he knows he’s found it by the way you arch your back against him and shudder. His other hand finds its way down to your clit, and rubs in a slow pace.

“You wanted to suck me off on the plane, hm?” he growls, grunting as he thrusts in again, “Wanted to drop to your knees like a pretty little whore and swallow my cock?”

“Uh huh,” you moan, “I wanted you to cum in my mouth.” He rocks his hips in harder.

“Ohh. What a perfect little slut you are. Beautiful, fucking beautiful. And all mine.”

“All yours to wreck,” you repeat, “Through it all. No matter what.”

“That’s my girl. You’re my babygirl.”

“Mhmm…”

“Would you kill for me?”

“You fucking know I would.”

He moans your name, free hand crawling up to grope your breast, then wrap around your neck. You gasp, and your orgasm hits you. He goes a little harder, thrusting until he too relaxes, finishing deep inside of you.

He goes to roll over, but you put a hand back on his arm. “Stay inside me?” He hums his affirmative, and wraps his arms around you from behind. You sigh, the night’s events unsettling you. Usually you were immune to anything that comes with the life, but… you’d never expected to see anyone from that photograph, let alone almost be killed by one. It was all very eerie, and you didn’t have a good feeling about any of it.

“Bri? Were you and Stephen ever really friends?” you ask softly. He readjusts his chin in your neck, tracing patterns up your back.

“He and I… were close. He was the only one I ran with when it was just me and Twiggy, after he joined up. It was the three of us for a while, before we joined with Trent’s syndicate and became Antichrist. Pogo was gonna be an engineer for NASA. He was fucking brilliant. A mad genius who’s so brilliant that he can’t do anything constructive with it.”

You think of the man in the other room, nodding. “Hm.” Manson laughs bitterly, popping a valium he had taken from his bag.

“Now he’s just a stupid, scared shell of what he was. Now… I wouldn’t piss on Pogo if he was on fire.”

“What happened?” Your boyfriend is silent for a bit, and you wonder if he fell asleep. He sighs though, so you qualify. “You don’t have to talk about it if—”

“He said some things. Did some things. Said I was doing things I wasn’t. After Mission Grotesque went to hell, it was clear. He betrayed me. Turned a lot of people I knew and trusted against me, then had the nerve to quit the life, think he could run from it. I guess in a way, he was responsible for me closing a big part of myself off. A part I’m still learning how to show to you.”

You hum, holding his hands in front of you. You feel along the tattoos on his fingers, unable to see them under the covers in the dark but knowing exactly where each one was.

“I’d kill him just for hurting you,” you say.

“I know, babygirl,” he whispers, kissing the back of your neck with a smile, “But you’d miss.”

* * *

You wake up to a gunshot.

Turning over blearily, you realize Manson is no longer behind you, and you sit straight up in bed. Your heart begins to race in panic, but it slows back down when he opens the door. He’s got his black suit on, makeup done, with a hooded trench on overtop.

“Get your things on,” he says calmly, holding Ruvi close to his chest. She paws him affectionately in the face, and he kisses the top of her head. “We’re leaving.”

“Bates has the jet?” you ask, still half-conscious from sleep.

“There’s a new one waiting for us outside.”

“But…” you glance over his shoulder into the other room, and he tucks a gun away.

“Pogo’s dead.”

The shock hits you. “But he--!”

“The worst mistake he ever made was all those years ago, telling me where he kept all his secrets,” Manson tells you, holding up a beaten, sealed old journal. “Pogo was smart, but in the end, not when it counted. You never trust anyone in this business. Especially not me.”

You get out of bed, and shimmy into a dress. Manson gives you his coat, and the two of you walk past Pogo’s body, bleeding out on the floor. The dark red is soaking through the crude hardwood planks into the dirt of the dug-out bunker, and you stare at it in morbid fascination.

“Let’s go, angel,” Manson says, putting up his black hood, and tosses a match down the stairs. You listen to it burn as you walk, holding onto your boyfriend’s arm. He strokes your knuckles as the jet door opens. “On to surprises, bloodshed, and champagne in Berlin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments :) 
> 
> Also PSA: Ruvi is a pure sweet angel and no harm will come to her in this story.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter: Threats Of Romance

Berlin is a beautiful city—you always marvel at the sight of it whenever you visit with Brian. Aside from New York, this is your favorite place to travel with him.

“Enjoying the sights?” Manson asks. You turn, eyes half lidded with content sleepiness.

“I am. I could use a nap, though.”

“We’ll sleep when we get to the hotel,” he nods, “Get my girl room service, a little wine, let her sleep for a while I fix my…” he looks at his reflection in the jet window, “Decent makeup.” He frowns, inspecting the plum colored lipstick bleeding outside the lines.

“You’re perfect. You know that, right?” you grin, slipping your eye mask on.

“Mmm,” he takes your hand. This is the sweetest you’d seen him in a while. He’s affectionate when he wants to be, but he also gets like this when he’s feeling vulnerable. Maybe Berlin is getting to him. You don’t know exactly what happened here back in the day, and you’re not going to ask. You may never know, and that’s okay.

You both head to the check in desk, Ruvi hot on your heels and you holding onto Manson’s arm. A few people turn to look, just because of his height, but nobody seems to be intimidated. People here mind their own business; it’s a nice change.

“Für zwei,” he says, handing the concierge a card. The lady slips it through, and her face grows into a welcoming smile.

“Willkommen, Mr. Manson. Enjoy your stay.” She nods to you as well, and you smile back as you follow Brian up to the elevator doors.

“Nap with me?” you murmur, “We can do our makeup together later.”

“Okay,” he concedes. “It’s a phenomenon for me to be up and out at this time of day, anyway. I have to get back on my nocturnal sleep schedule, after Pogo fucked it up.”

You reach the penthouse suite, and collapse on the golden bed by the large window. Ruvi jumps up next to you, and Manson picks her up, moving her so he can get onto the bed with you. She just comes right back, walking on his head. He gently takes her off again, but seconds later, she solidifies her presence with an insistent _mrow_ , and plops down right in between you two.

“I guess you’re sleeping with mom and dad, huh?” you ask her.

“Hearing myself being referred to as ‘dad’ and not just ‘daddy’ is terrifying, thank you,” he mutters into Ruvi’s fur.

“Don’t worry,” you huff, “You’ll never actually have to live up to the title.”

“Thank god,” he mumbles, and you raise an eyebrow. “You know what I mean.” He kisses Ruvi’s ear. “You, my love, are all the offspring we need.”

“Mhmm,” you smile, cuddling the little white ball of fluff between you two. “Bri?”

“Mm.”

“Who’s the hit tonight?”

“I don’t know his name. Just another stranger Bates has identified as a threat to somebody, somewhere.”

He falls asleep a few seconds later, light snoring overtaking the room. You sigh, looking up at the ceiling, and let sleep take you away from the midday sunlight streaming through the window.

\---

“Rise and shine. It’s time for some action.”

You roll over to cuddle Ruvi again, but she’s left you. Instead, she’s over on the counter of the ornate vanity, batting Manson’s eye pencil around.

“Mm, action?” you smile, rubbing your eyes, “Gonna come over here and have a little fun with your tongue in certain places?”

“I would,” he holds up two tickets, “But this takes precedence. My hit’s gonna be at this gala. It’s a museum event, a banquet. I’ll find a good time at some point through the night to kill the guy.”

“Do we have time for a little something first?”

He looks back, expecting you to be half naked already. Instead, he finds you pulling on a coat. “What did you have in mind?”

\---

Die Frau des Vampirs, or the storefront of The Vampire’s Wife stands before you on the downtown Berlin block. Manson peers inside.

“The fashion isn’t bad.”

“Are we shopping for me or you here?” you tease. He smirks, and follows you inside. After being greeted by the salesperson, you immediately head over to the dress rack. He sifts through some jackets as well, holding up a few to himself.

“Remember, something gold,” Manson murmurs, “So we can match tonight.”

You search through the racks, and finally come to a [dress](https://thevampireswife.com/collections/shop/products/the-mini-cate-dress-6), gold and black, short and with shoulder pads. Manson encourages you to try it on, so you do. You turn around a few times for him.

“You must not like it very much,” you murmur. His dark, dangerous gaze flickers up to you.

“What makes you say that?”

“Looks like you wanna tear it right off me.”

It's decided. “We have buy it.” He gets up off the couch quickly, and you take his arm. “Anything else you need, baby?”

“Mmm. No. We should get back,” you say. The two of you approach the cash. Something catches his eye at the counter as he gets his wallet out.

“Could I see those cross shaped ones?” he asks the lady at the front.

“Certainly, sir.”

She takes them out, and presents them with a smile. “Seid ihr beide Christian?” _(Are you both Christian?)_

Manson smirks. “One hundred percent _nein_.” He puts down his credit card. “We’ll take them too.” Despite her confusion, she rings them through as you gush over the jewelry.

“Bri!” you smile, kissing his cheek. He leans into your ear, brushing your hair aside tenderly.

“Just remember to wear ‘em upside down, babygirl.”

The two of you get back to the hotel with about an hour and a half to get ready. The sun is going down, and you’re looking forward to showing off your new dress. Manson tosses the room key onto the bed. He takes his shirt from this morning off, and undoes his pants.

“We have an hour. Which means—”

“I know what it means,” you say, already starting to fill up the Jacuzzi. You empty the small package of rose petals the hotel had left for you, and open the curtains with a small sigh. You have a perfect view of the sunset over the city.

Getting out of all his clothes, he sits down in the steamy water. “Gonna join me?”

“I don’t know,” you grin, “I like the view from up here.”

“You shouldn’t,” he places a hand over his crotch, hiding it, “Baths are weird, makes my dick float.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

“Like a little helicopter.”

“It’s not little.”

“That’s true. It’s making me shy, I’m gonna tuck it.”

“Don’t you dare.”

You giggle, dropping your shirt, and get out of your panties, sliding in beside him. The rose petals graze your skin, and he looks at you with hunger in his eyes.

“You’re damn irresistible.”

“I know,” you whisper, and get into his lap, sitting on top of him. He reaches down, thumbs circling your nipples. You grind down against his cock, and press your lips to his, looping your arms around his neck. Water droplets cascade down your body as you lift up, then down again, teasing him. He groans, appreciating every inch of your skin with his fingers. 

“Just sit on it already.”

“Not yet,” you groan, kissing just below his ear, down to his neck. That spot is sensitive for him, you know, and he shivers. His hands travel up your back, and pull you in for another kiss. His tongue slips into your mouth, and you sit like that, making out in the tub, as the sun dips away, and finally disappears.

“Pretty little girl,” he growls, “Who do you belong to?”

“Silly question. You know the answer.” You lean in, lips ghosting over his again. He moans, and just as he’s about to get rough, grab you and sit you down on his cock, you get up out of the tub. “Well. That was a nice quick soak. Time to get ready.”

He lays his head back, sinking down in exasperation. “I hate you.”

After he gets out, he sits down at the vanity, drying off and slipping into dress clothes. You wrap your arms around him from behind, smoothing your hands down his unbuttoned white shirt. You press a line of kisses up his neck as you do his buttons up for him, and begin tying his tie while he assembles a couple of guns.

He leans down to the counter, sniffing one of the three lines he’s got out. He rubs some into his gums, and leans his head back into your breasts. “Have I told you today that you’re beautiful?"

“Why are you being so fucking sappy?” you mutter, resting your elbows on his shoulders, “All day, you’ve been all over me and the cat. What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m just,” he pauses to do another line, “In a strange mood, I guess.” He shakes his head, lifting his chin to properly fill in his lips with color, “I can’t shake this feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“You know those feelings that you get where you think you’re gonna die?”

You let him go, worried. “You think you’re going to die tonight?!”

“No. I just think something’s not gonna go right.” He shrugs. “Of course, I have shit intuition. So. There’s that.” He looks down, to find Ruvi getting curious with the cocaine.

“Na ah ah, sweet angel. Those are daddy’s narcotics,” he picks her up, “Yes they are. _Yes_ they are!” He sets the cat back down, and she walks right through the last line, leaving a trail of snowy white paw prints across the vanity. Manson sighs. “You’re lucky I fucking love you.” He taps out a bump from a small vial, and lifts it up for you. You sniff it.

“So, I get a gun to keep in my garter belt, right?” you smirk.

“I never agreed to that.”

“I think it would be a good idea.”

“I think it would be a very bad idea, and… I’m right.”

“Extra protection!” 

“I don’t need you blowing your pussy off, because you decided it would be fun to keep a ladygun in your pantyhose.” 

“But—”

“No! That’s final.” His voice softens. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, babygirl. I’mma take care of everything tonight.”

As you go to get your hair ready for the evening though, he can’t help but ponder what Pogo had said, about life with you. What would he do if it was all taken away?

_Fuck that. Pogo was never credible, anyway. It would be just as idiotic to put stock into anything he said about anything, other than what can be proven by the book he’s got stashed in the bag._

The lights of the gala hall glimmer white gold. You’re holding Manson’s arm as he escorts you up the steps. The two of you look incredibly dapper, style complimenting one another. Your hair is brushed to the side, the dress Manson bought for you today beautiful as it was when you tried it on. Manson has got his usual black suit on, but he’s wearing a black half mask over his mouth as an accessory, along with leather gloves.

As you two enter, he turns slightly, glancing over his shoulder.

“What is it?” you ask. He just shakes his head, and turns back. The two of you walk toward the tables, and mingle a little bit with some friendly people. The whole time, Manson keeps checking over his shoulder, as if a shadow was following you two.

He’s not telling you to duck yet though, so you figure it’s nothing to worry over.

You see name tags at your seat, with glasses of champagne waiting. His is labeled _Marilyn Manson_ , the pseudonym the reservation was made under. Yours simply reads _Mrs. Manson,_ in scrawling font. It brings a smile to your face.

You take your seat next to him as the orchestra begins to play, and place a hand over his. Your hand slowly moves up, to rests over his crotch. You can feel his eyes boring holes into you, but in amusement, you dare not turn to acknowledge it. All you can do now, is go further, and finish the job you started in the Jacuzzi.

It’s not like you’re distracting him yet. He hasn’t even identified his hit.

“Feeling playful are we, kitten?” he muses. You simply continue your rubbing, up and down. Manson inhales, finishing his drink in one swallow. “You’re lucky daddy’s in the mood for a game.” He covers your hand with his own, making sure you stay there. He grinds up into your touch, and you bite your lip, wishing you could take him out of his pants right here and now and finish him properly.

But for propriety’s sake, you keep jerking your boyfriend off in his dress pants. Manson’s good at holding face, not even breaking a sweat. He’s close, you can tell by the way his breathing has quickened, and the throbbing you can feel. Looking around, you give a deviant smirk, and slip your hand down his waistband. At this point, Manson knows better than to protest, and lets you, keeping his arms out of the way of your work.

“Fuck. Fuck, baby,” he whispers, eyelids fluttering, “That’s good. That’s so good. Good girl. Good girl.”

“You like it?” you ask innocently, “That good?”

He growls, and you stroke your thumb over his head. He gasps, letting out a low moan, and you make sure he’s good and finished before you remove your hand. Picking up the white cloth napkin, you clean your fingers.

“I think I won the game.”

“I didn’t say the game was finished.”

He reaches beneath your skirt, and—holy shit, he is going for it. Fuck, he’s relentless, pumping in and out. Your wetness coats his fingers as he fucks you rough with them, as casually as he would do up your back zipper for you.

You start to gasp, suppressing a whine as you silently plead for him to finish you.

“There it is,” he whispers. “You think you deserve to cum, after all the teasing you did today?”

“I made you cum, didn’t I?” you gasp, and he shoves his fingers deeper, using his thumb now to rub your clit. “Oh, god…”

“I don’t want to hear any back talk from you,” he growls, “Hm? You’re a bad little babygirl. I don’t know if I should let you cum on my fingers.”

“Nonono, please, please,” you almost sob, hoping you’re not making a scene in the middle of the gala, “Please. I need it. I need you.”

“Say it again.”

“I need you!”

“My pretty little whore knows just what to say.”

You cry out into his shoulder as he brings you to an explosive orgasm. You rock your hips down as it washes over you, and he strokes your g-spot, continuing his assault on it until he’s sure you’re satisfied. He removes his fingers, and takes the stained napkin you’re sharing between you two now.

“And that is what happens when we don’t—” Looking past you, Manson notices somebody. “That’s him.” You look over, to see who must be the hit. You’re not sure if he looks the part of someone somebody wants to kill, a middle aged man, mousy brown hair with stubble, fairly attractive. But that’s not for you to determine. Checking beside you, you realize something else is still bothering your boyfriend.

“What is it?” you ask, tugging his tie. Manson glances sharply to his right, back to his preoccupied target, and then clenches his jaw.

“This is your big moment, babygirl.” He hands you the ladygun from earlier, and gets up. “I won’t be far.”

Startled, you look down at it. He doesn’t mean…

Manson darts through the crowd of people, feeling the assailant hot on his tail. The man who’s been following the both of you all night is dressed in a black and white pin striped suit with a blonde gorilla mask, which would have been outlandish, if not for the avant-garde fashion at this particular event.

Manson keeps walking. The gorilla keeps following. Manson fingers his gun, and watches for you.

_Does he want you to go and… and conduct the hit? But you… With all your cockiness and big talk, you’d never done this before. Shit. You’d better do it before the guy decides he needs to go out for a smoke or something. Wait… wouldn’t it be better if he was isolated? What if someone came with him?_

Stop overthinking this and kill the bastard!

Taking a deep breath, you tuck the pistol, and saunter over to the man. You put a hand on his shoulder, and smile.

“You look lonely.”

The guy glances up, unphased. “Do I?”

You slide into his lap, and sling your legs over his outstretched ones. “Yeah. I’d like to fix that.”

The guy chuckles. “I don’t deal with hookers. Sorry.”

“Uh uh. With me? You can have it all for free,” you smile, tilting his chin up to you. He raises his eyebrows, a dopey smile crossing his face.

“You’re forward.”

“Don’t like that?” you tease. He finally gives in to your advances, putting a hand up your thigh, dangerously close to Manson’s territory.

“I love it.”

On the upper level of the museum, Manson listens to the boots of the gorilla behind him on the marble staircase. He gets his bag out, assembling his rifle as he walks, and looks down at the ground floor. Schubert’s trio two is playing, distracting the guests with the pleasant piano and cello. Nobody is anticipating the pandemonium that always descends on these places after someone’s taken out.

Manson usually takes pleasure in each of his kills, loves watching the blood drain and pool, watching the target drop like a rock. Tonight, thanks to bleached out King Kong, he has two motherfuckers to worry about.

Downstairs, you’re putting on quite the show. “What’s your name?” you ask the hit.

“David.”

“Mm. Got a last name, Dave?”

“That's for me to know.”

“Aww,” you pout, tugging his lapels, “Don’t trust me?”

“You speak English in a room full of Germans,” he says, “That’s a little suspicious, considering I also speak English.”

“Coincidence?” You start to reach for your ladygun.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” You feel something poking into your stomach, and look down to see a pistol that he’s holding. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. I didn’t know they were still after me. Who sent you?”

Your mind stalls. Suddenly, all the sweet talk you were laying on thick was gone, and everything was falling apart. All you can think of is running, but his hand tightens on your leg, keeping you firmly planted. _Shit. Plan B?!_

A bullet whizzes inches past your nose, and lodges straight into David’s skull, sending his head snapping back. You sigh in relief as blood trails down between his eyes, and turn. Manson shot from up on the second level, a sharpshooter rifle positioned on the ledge. You quickly hop off the dead man as the guests’ shock wears off, and they all begin to panic.

Screams and shoving prove how civilized humanity can really be, as you dodge and weave your way through the terrified masses toward the stairs. You finally make it up, and look around. _Where did you boyfriend disappear to now?_

Manson watches the gorilla step with purpose ahead of him, increasing in speed, oblivious to being the one who is being followed now. Just when it looks like he’s making a turn down a hallway, Manson grabs him by the collar, and drags him up some more stairs.

Opening and slamming a door to the roof, he shoves the guy out. The guy is immediately on defense, taking out a gun Manson knew he had. Manson tries to disarm him, but this ends up inciting hand to hand combat. Manson tries a punch, but gorilla is swifter. He hits him in the ribs, which triggers Manson’s reflex. His boot flies up into the guy’s face, and this pisses him right off.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” gorilla mutters.

“Yeah?” Manson eggs whoever this little punk is on, “I’ll burn this place down with you in it. They won’t even recognize your corpse!”

They both stand back and point their pistols at one another. Then the stranger starts shaking his head. He finally tucks the pistol away. Manson stares, unwilling to lower his weapon.

“Manson. Son of a _bitch_.”

Still, the gun stays up. Most people who know him want to kill him, case in point: Pogo.

But this isn’t Pogo. The mask comes off, and platinum blonde hair falls around a familiar face.

“Five,” Manson mutters, “Jesus fucking Christ.” A million questions go through his head, so he picks the most important ones. “What were you doing following me?! Were you sent to kill me, some poetic shit like that?”

“No, no.” John smiles in good nature, shaking his mane of blonde hair out. “Your hit in there was our hit too. You just killed him before I could.”

The door to the roof opens, and you come running out. “Bri?!” You raise your gun to the blonde, but Manson enlightens you before you make your first kill a mistake.

“This is John.”

You lower the gun in exasperation. “Jesus Christ, Brian, how many people you know want to kill you?”

“Everyone.”

"Sounds about right. This your new hit partner?" John smiles.

"Not quite yet," you say, cheeks burning in memory of your inability to act down on the floor. Manson puts a comforting arm around you.

"This is my girl, (y/n)."

Just then, someone drops down out of the sky with a grapple hook, tackling Manson to the ground with two knives in hand and seemingly superhuman strength. John nudges him with his toe. "Kenny. Kenny, it's fine."

The guy looks up, ready to tackle you too, so Manson shoves him. “Ginger. Ginger, Please don’t kill my girlfriend.”

“Please don’t kill his girlfriend, Ginger,” John echoes.

“Please don’t kill whose girlfriend, Ginger?!” Ginger stands, taking off his mask. _“Manson?”_

“Yay, big fuckin’ reunion,” Manson mutters, and you help him up. You look at the two guys opposite you.

"What's with the eye patch?"

"His fault," Ginger looks at Manson. You turn expectantly to your boyfriend, and he rubs his neck. 

"Yeah. That was an accident. A cool accident, but... didn't mean to fling that gold brick at you." 

"It's okay," Ginger sighs, "There are worse things to have flung at you, like knives, or... or mic stands. Makes me look like a mean, like, pirate or something."

“So. You two were part of Antichrist," you deduce, starting to remember both of them from the photo. 

John and Ginger both nod. “Yep!”

“Him before me,” John explains, nudging his partner. “I came in during Operation Coma White.”

“Hoo, what a hit that was,” Ginger shakes his head, and the other two agree.

“Hollywood, 98,” Manson tells you, “We took out a whole drug ring.”

“You and Twiggs kept the stolen dope for yourself,” Ginger says.

“Not about to waste it,” Manson retorted, “I don’t like the drugs—”

“But the drugs like me,” the other two finish with laughter, and you smile at their obvious camaraderie. At least this isn’t as hostile as the last member of the syndicate you had met.

“Ah, Manson,” John grins, “Haven’t changed a bit.”

“Except the hair,” Ginger points out.

“Who you working for now?" Manson asks.

"A guy named Cummings. Currently working on Operation Zombie." John looks at his partner, unimpressed. Ginger shrugs. "He asked!"

The reason behind John's reluctance to tell Manson everything about how their lives have been going, is needless to be said. Your boyfriend ducks his head, smiling. "It's okay. I wouldn't trust me either. No hard feelings.”

“Right.” John shakes his hand.

“Hey. How would you guys like to stay with us tonight?” you offer.

\---

Two hours later, the four of you (plus Ruvi) had arrived in Stuttgart. It had been the plan originally to fly back to homebase in LA overnight, recoop, get some new gadgets, but now that Manson had found John and Ginger, nobody was about to travel or sleep tonight.

“—And then Manson tells the guy, he says, standing over him with a gun: _‘You might as well kill yourself, you’re already dead’_.”

John shakes his head at the story a very tipsy Ginger just told, sipping his beer and cuddling Peruvia like she’s the greatest thing in the world. Manson smirks, holding you close to him on the couch. He's already had more than a few, and he's all hands. 

“See? I’m a fucking badass. I’ve always been a fucking badass.”

“You’re unnecessarily violent,” John says.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I think it’s sexy,” you say.

“It’s very sexy, thank you,” Manson says, bending you over his lap and feeling up your skirt. You giggle, slapping his hand away. He responds by spanking you, growling playfully into your hair. 

“God, I remember when Twiggy was running with us,” John brings up, “You two were the worst together. Inseparable, and really fucking precise… but the worst.”

“An asshole that guy, through and through,” Ginger smiles. “Almost as bad as Manson. Love him.” The room quiets down a little as they think of their friend. Nobody poses the question of wondering where he is now… it’s accepted that nobody knows. Manson looks behind him, to his bag, seeing through his drunken stupor for a moment.

“There’s something you guys should see.”

He takes out Pogo’s book, and rejoins the group. “Pogo’s journal,” Ginger says, instantly recognizing the item. 

“How—?” John’s eyes widen, but Manson cuts him off before things can devolve into a fight.

“This book has Jeordie’s location. I think, since you guys are here… we should open it together. Maybe try to follow it.”

You lean in as well, eager as the others to solve this mystery. Manson opens the journal, and finds a single page. One single page, with large, block writing scribbled in pen.

_If you’re reading this, I’m dead. Because of you. YOU KILLED ME, YOU ASSHOLE! I KNEW IT! Goddamn it._

_You really think I’d be stupid enough to leave this thing laying around with everything I had in my brain for you to read? That made me DISPOSABLE! Well, congratulations Manson. You just killed the last person who knows where Twiggy is._

_One last laugh. Even if it **is** my last laugh. _

_-Lovingly, The Mad Clown_

Manson’s heart sinks. The bastard must have done this the night you had stayed, just as a precaution. _Fuck!_

He falls back against the couch cushions, covering his face with his hands. John and Ginger look equally as crestfallen. That’s it, then. There’s no way to find him. No way to ever solve the mystery. The room is silent, everyone mourning the true loss of their friend and partner, Jeordie White.

A voice from the balcony behind you disturbs the silence.

“Heard I was being looked for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments keep me writing! Hope all your holidays are going well :) Happy New Year!


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter for the long wait! Finally finding out a bit about Manson's secretive past, before the action unfolds... 
> 
> Song for the chapter: King Kill 33

_Ukraine, 1996. _

“Are we in?”

Manson could hear Ginger over the earpiece, as he hid by the entrance to the building.

“Twiggy—we in?”

Twiggy looked around from inside the building. “We’re in.”

Ginger’s voice crackled through everyone’s earpieces. “Pogo?”

“Operation Kinderfeld is a go, fo sho,” Pogo says, swinging around in his wheelie chair he’d set up in, just outside the radius. “Let’s make this fast, this whole hit is creepier than an uncle hugging you for too long.” The code on the top right of his middle monitor blinked, reminding him of how much time they had to complete their hit. 4:16, and counting.

“How long do they have?” Ginger asked, perched atop his lookout spot on the roof. The sharpshooter, in charge of both lookout and body disposal, had a bullet proof sleeveless vest on to avoid any more unnecessary injuries, white and black dreads tied up above his head in a what looked like a pineapple.

“They have enough time to fart, but they don’t got time to hang around and smell it,” Pogo said, spinning his chair around, “AKA, you shitheads better get the fuck out of there in T-minus now.”

“You have a way with words, Pogo,” Manson grinned, and motioned to Twiggy inside. Twiggy played with a few controls, and the door unlocked, letting him in.

“Where is he?” Manson muttered.

“Upstairs.”

“The kids still in Pogo’s Playhouse?”

“Affirmative, Maz.”

 _“Why’d we have to call the location that?”_ Pogo complained.

 _“Uhh, we needed a codename that wasn’t ‘underground factory full of children sold into labor,”_ Ginger said.

“Man, I was so relieved when we got this assignment,” Twiggy whispered as he and Manson pressed their backs to the wall.

“Why?!”

“Lucky the guy who runs this ring didn’t contact Trent first, have us kill the guy who’s trying to liberate the place.”

“Yeah,” Manson said, loading his gun, “Well. If we were, I think I’d have to kill the motherfucker anyway. And I don’t think Trent would object.”

They turned the corner, and stopped.

_“Shit.”_

“Shit? What’s shit?” Twiggy asked, holding Manson’s shoulder. Ginger grimaced, crouching down again.

_“Ahhh… you got company. Really soon, guys.”_

“Hold em off! Fuckin’ snipe them asshole, we’re fucking busy!” Manson snapped.

 _“Get busy leaving,”_ Pogo huffed, _“I see them on the cams too. There’s too many goons for Ginger to take out without compromising his position.”_

“Who gives a fuck about his position?!” Manson nearly shouted, “We’re in here, busting our ass, the least he can do is take a few of those guys out before taking a bullet himself!”

“Hey,” Twiggy reminded him softly, and his eyes said it all. Manson calmed a little, and touched his piece.

“Ginger… get outta there and send down the stilts. The stairs are busted.”

_“Got it. Exit plan?”_

“Ceiling. Have Pogo ready with the controls.” He looked at his partner. “Twigs, you grapple up. I’ve got an idea.”

Twiggy took his gun out too, but thought twice. Ginger dropped the stilts through the ceiling, and got on the earpiece again.

_“They’re heading right for you.”_

“Maz, I’ll stay on the ground. You get up, take care of the hit, and I’ll take care of things down here.”

“How many goons?” Manson asked Ginger.

_“Nine.”_

“Twigs, fuck. You can’t take nine of them.”

Twiggy gave a lopsided grin. “I’ve got a plan. I always do.”

Left without time to argue, Manson turned, grabbed the stilts, fitted them, and made it to the second floor. “We need more than one fucking grapple hook,” he muttered, and Ginger picked that up through the earpiece, hiding on his stomach up above.

_“Take it up with Trent.”_

“I shouldn’t have to. Fuckin’ irresponsible asshole.” Manson hushed as he travelled along the hallway, long black hair tucked into a metallic silver helmet that helped him blend in with the other workers. He crept along the debris covered second factory floor, covering all sides. Then he heard the guy they were after, pacing just on the other side of the wall.

Down on the ground, the goons all ran in. One pointed. Twiggy was hunched in the corner, knees pulled up to his chest. His face was hidden from sight by his long black hair, pulled out of its confines.

“Один із працівників внизу?” ( _One of the workers from downstairs?_ ) one goon hissed. The leader inclined his head, walked up. Twiggy shivered a little for effect. He had pulled his pants down to reveal his “lucky panties”, which he wore on all the high-risk jobs.

“Я не думаю, що це дитина," ( _I don’t think that’s a kid_ ) the leader finally muttered back. Twiggy giggled, spreading his legs a little wider, and hit play on his little tape recorder. He had recorded his last sexual rendezvous’ striptease, so the factory filled with soft, recorded moans. A couple of the guys laughed, nudged each other.

“Подумайте, вона хоче вас,” ( _Think she wants you_ ) one guy said to his friend. “Іди забирай. Там більше нікого немає.” ( _Go get some. There’s no one else around._ ) 

Twiggy bit his finger as the goon came over, and when he finally felt a hand on his knee, he looked up, giving them all a big grin. He then shot something into the ground. The ground he had been sitting on caved in as he threw a bomb out into the men, and the explosion rippled as he fell down into the underground of the factory. On his feet again, he grabbed his recorder and dusted it off. Then he looked around, realizing he was surrounded by the children caught in this crossfire.

 _“Where the fuck are you two? What was that explosion? It would be nice if you could tip me off, say ‘hey Pogo, I’m about to blow shit up, sound good?’ before you go giving me a--”_ Pogo babbled into the earpiece, and Manson ripped it out of his ear, suppressing a growl. The man always annihilated his concentration at the worst of moments. He crept up to the doorway, and waited. At just the right moment, he swung around… and got a fist in the face.

The target who ran this operation went running out, shooting back at Manson with shaky aim. Manson did growl this time, letting out a scream that could only be described as pissed off. He lifted his arm and shot four times, each one hitting the man in the back. He fell like a sack of bricks, and Manson’s tall, wiry frame shot up, stalking over to the man. He crouched down to sneer into the guy’s terrified face.

“They say that hell’s not hot, cocksucker. You’ll have to let me know.” He held the barrel of the gun to the guy’s temple, and watched the blood paint the wall red. No one was around to see the small, satisfied smile growing on his lips.

He put his earpiece in, tuning back into Pogo’s rant.

_“—shit when we’re all six feet under pushing daisies because Manson and Twiggy decided to blow each other instead of doing their fucking jobs and staying on the clo—”_

“Target down,” Manson snarled, “Now will you shut up?”

_“Hey princess, this is the best hacker in the world you’re talking to, I can delete your entire existence from the government’s database during a power nap.”_

Manson elected not to acknowledge the obvious that none of them were even in the government's database, and with mild amusement, ignored him. “Listen, I’ve gotta find Twigs.”

“Looks like he’s fucked around with the floor,” Pogo said, zooming in on one of the cam feeds, “I don’t know what that basket-case is doing.”

“You’re one to talk, fruit loop,” Manson snapped, dropping back down to the first floor, and pulled his piece out again, lifting his gun. He kicked around some debris, an arm that had blown off, and peered into the hole in the ground.

“Oh hey Maz,” Twiggy called up. “This is Brenda. She’s 13.” Brenda, 13, was braiding Twiggy’s hair.

 _“18 seconds, and you’re locked in!”_ Pogo warned. Twiggy quickly let Manson pull him up, and the two got out just in time. The doors clicked shut.

Ginger joined the two as they evacuated the premises. “No point in securing cleanup. Can’t get back in anyway.” He glanced back. “Shouldn’t we try and help the kids out of there, though? What’s gonna happen to ‘em?”

“That’s Trent’s prerogative,” Manson said, shaking bullet casings from his black jacket. “Not our problem.” He walked ahead of them. “We’re not the heroes. We were never even here.”

He looked down to see his hands covered in blood, thinking of what happened to the last undercover hitman working with them… their friend. The accident. His knife.

He smeared the blood up his arms.

\---

_ Hollywood, 1998.  _

“You look the part,” Ginger nodded.

5, the new recruit into the syndicate, stood before them on one of the private jets for Antichrist, modeling the undercover look for the hit. Most of the group was still getting used to trusting him, but Ginger had taken a liking to him immediately. He seemed like a solid asset.

“You look like a goddamn secret serviceman,” Pogo groaned, and Twiggy agreed, and after popping two pill capsules of pure amphetamines, got up and took John’s jacket off.

“Looks better.”

“Says the man who wears dresses,” Manson grinned, lounging across the seats.

“You wear dresses too,” Twiggy retorted.

“On occasion.” Manson brushed red hair out of his half-lidded eyes. “If they’re tasteful…”

“How about this?” John asked, turning around again. His shirt was unbuttoned a little, hair greased back.

“You look like Fabio, 5,” Manson muttered.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?!” the blonde complained, voice almost akin to whining, “You’ve been dressing me and undressing me the whole flight!”

“Shhh,” Pogo joked, “Trent’s probably listening in, and he specifically told us no more orgies, he can’t pay for all the rectal surgery.” John’s eyes widened, and Ginger scoffed, coming over.

“Forget it, you’ll get used to them. You look fine, and you’re gonna do fine.” 

“Yeah. Thanks, man.”

“I think he’s gonna crash and burn,” Manson laughed, and he and Twiggy started giggling together as the taller cut up lines. John glared, taking his seat in silent rage. Ginger shot them both dirty looks, and followed the blonde.

“What the fuck’s got your panties in a bunch, Ginger?!” Manson laughed, sniffing the first line.

“Go suck 5’s dick!” Twiggy laughed along, “You know you want to!”

“I’ll admit, he does look like a cute little twink in that outfit,” Manson grinned after them, rocking his hips up. Once they were certainly out of earshot, he shook his head. “Shootin’ me the evil eye like I just broke up with his fucking sister or something. I’ve never even seen Ginger mad.”

“No, me either… not like that.”

“He’d better smarten the hell up and leave Ken Doll to get killed all by himself, like a big boy. You can’t make friends, or you’ll have your fuckin’ heart broken.” Twiggy looked up, and Manson nudged his ear affectionately. “You’re my exception.”

Pogo rolled his eyes, and tumbled backward toward the table. “You’re gonna make the poor guy quit before his first hit.”

“You feel sorry for him?” Twiggy asked.

“…Nah. I don’t feel sorry for anyone except myself.”

“You can’t quit being a hitman,” Manson added, “There’s no way out of this shit.”

“Not that we’d ever want a way out,” Twiggy said, and Manson nodded, laying back to enjoy his burst of a coke rush.

“I wouldn’t mind settling down eventually.” The other two looked at the hacker, trying to gauge if he was joking or not; you never could tell with him. Realizing that was very much out of character, Pogo just laughed. “Ah. Fuck that though, right? I’d have to be out of my mind, cuckoo. I’m in the game for life,” he said, plugging one nostril and going down to help himself to their dope, “Straight up until death.” 

They got to the location of the hit. It was a drug lord they had to take out in West Hollywood, initial meeting point at a small bar called The Harlowe. Someone hadn’t paid someone along the way, dirty coke money ended up in the wrong people’s hands, and now, it was time for the professionals to get involved.

“You know the code for take the shot, right rookie?” Manson asked, straightening his wire.

“Yeah. Don’t call me rookie.” Manson stared him down, right into his fiery little brown eyes.

“What was that, rookie?”

John seethed silently, and fixed his hair one last time. “Send me in.”

Pogo was on standby with a portable laptop, some high tech thing Trent’s people had worked on. It could connect to the web anywhere, not just by cable.

“Entering the premises,” John reported, and entered the bar. Ginger, in full undercover getup too, entered the scene a couple seconds later. He took his usual spot as lookout, sitting down outside the door and holding a cup out for spare change. Manson and Twiggy sat with Pogo, watching over the cams.

 _“Operation Coma White is a go_ ,” Manson said.

The drug lord was a big guy with a ponytail, looked like he could pick John up and snap him in half. He sounded like he was from Brooklyn—must’ve figured junkie movie stars were better for business, and he was right.

“You the big shot?” the drug lord asked almost immediately, looking over his shoulder from the corner booth. “Jake 50, right?”

“You got it,” John said, leaning against the table.

“I was told this was gonna be big money. You got the big money with you?”

“Yes.”

“You look like a fuckin’ cop. You a fuckin’ cop, you little pisser?” Pogo burst out laughing over the earpiece, and John whacked the side of his head at the deafening noise. The drug lord’s glare deepened. “Fuckin’ nutter too. How old are you, 12? Just got outta pig training, thought you’d bring in a big bust?”

“Tell him to go fuck himself, a cop would—” Manson started, and heard a crackle. “Did… did that cocky little asshole just disconnect me?!” His nostrils flared. “I’m gonna bury him. He gets back here, he’s gonna lose all his pearly teeth.” Twiggy calmed him down as Pogo continued to laugh his ass off.

“You want a cop? Call the pig who sucked my cock last night after a show,” John said smoothly. The drug lord chuckled.

“You make me laugh, kid. I’m Tony Wiggins.”

John smirked. “Good to meet you, Tony. You got the stuff?”

“I know more about drugs than he does. I should have done this,” Twiggy muttered.

“No one in their right mind would send you undercover,” Manson replied with a smile.

Tony scoffed. “You crazy, pretty boy? Talking about the ‘stuff’ out here? Follow me.”

“Where are we going?” John asked, glancing back at the door where Ginger was.

 _“Don’t look back, don’t look back!”_ Pogo snapped over the earpiece. John adjusted himself, and swallowed.

“Why do you wanna know?” Tony asked, narrowing his eyes. “You fuckin’ bugged?”

“No, I’m not bugged.”

“Where’s the goddamn wire, you—”

“You touch me, I’ll slit your throat faster than you can draw the ‘44 you’re hiding in your back pocket,” John hissed. Tony’s eyebrows shot up, and he nodded.

“Alright. Alright, cool off. This way. Now, I just wanna be crystal clear here. You got the cash _on_ you, Mr. uh… 50?”

“I do.” Tony lead John out the back door, to a car waiting. “I’m not getting into your car.”

“Get in the car, or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Tony said, cocking a gun. Every impulse in John told him to take his gun out now, finish the job right here. But there were people around, it would compromise them all, and he’d be out of the syndicate faster than Trent put him in. He got into the car.

 _“5’s on the move,”_ Pogo told Ginger through the earpiece. _“I’m tracking the car... looks like they’re headed to an abandoned warehouse.”_

“Great. Time to go in,” Manson said, standing up, “He stalls too long, he’s deader than Daisy.” Pogo bristled at the expression.

“I’m coming too,” Twiggy said, standing up, “I can be the distraction again.” Manson sat him back down.

“No sacrifices for you today, you’ve been doing too much of that lately. Besides, you just took enough pills to knock a horse out, not even I could take that much. Pogo, watch him.”

“Pogo, hacker extraordinaire and babysitter,” Pogo sighed. “Aye aye aye. I should’ve joined NASA.” Twiggy clapped his hands on his knees like a 5-year-old.

Inside the car, Tony watched John as the driver took them to the warehouse. John was beginning to get nervous about the location change, but he was good at keeping his cool. Tony spoke. “I never even heard of you or your sorry ass music career. Who did you claim to be again?”

“Go ahead, look me up,” John replied. Pogo’s eyes widened, listening to this.

“Shit. Shit!” This kid’s overconfidence was making him earn his keep, that’s for sure. He started typing furiously into the laptop, and started creating a bunch of search results for ‘Jake 50’, the supposedly world famous guitarist. He loaded in a bunch of impressive bullshit, banking on the fact that John knew how to cover for it.

“Says here you’ve been… playing guitar since you were four years old?” John blinked, nodding.

“That’s right.”

“You sell out stadiums all over the world?”

“Yeah.”

“You toured with Mötley Crüe?”

John kept a straight face. “Hell yes, I did.”

“This is what this interwebs thing was invented for,” Pogo whispered to himself, amused. Tony seemed impressed by John’s extensive career for a few seconds, then his face settled back into a comfortable glare.

They finally reached the warehouse, and got out of the car. Manson had almost made it to the premises. 

“Alright. You’ll get your blow when you show me the cash.” John observed the three bodyguards Tony had behind him, all packing heat. He hoped Pogo could see how many there were, and he hoped Manson was on his way.

 _“Stall for a little longer,”_ Manson said through the earpiece, _“Keep up the act, remember-- you’re a user, do what I do.”_ John started to rub his nose and sniff incessantly. Manson listened in, frowning. _“I don’t do that, you prick.”_

John sighed. “What kind of stuff you got for me?”

Tony scoffed. “This guy. Mr. Big Shot. Beggars can’t be choosers, kid.”

“Do I look like a beggar to you?” 

“Huh. I guess not, if you can afford my stuff. We got great candy for you. The real good stuff.” John racked his brain for a believable response, but he honestly had no clue about drugs.

Manson listened as he walked quickly toward the warehouse. _“Tell him you’re not looking for any cheap rock candy crack, you want the good shit.”_

“I don’t want your crack rocks, you cheap asshole, I want your good stuff.”

_“Your good powder.”_

“Your good chowder.”

“Chowder?! This look like a seafood restaurant to you, genius?!”

John backtracked. “Powder. I meant…”

Manson watched through the window at the back, invisible as a ghost and quiet as a shadow. “There’s four guys,” he whispered into the earpiece, “Think Ginger can make it for backup?”

 _“Ginger’s currently on the verge of getting arrested for panhandling,”_ Pogo snorted, and Manson sighed. Their sharpshooter was never available to actually shoot anyone when they needed him to.

“Fine. I’ve taken on more.”

_“Be careful.”_

Manson paused, hearing Twiggy’s voice. “I will, Twigs.” He waited for John to say the words.

“Look, look. I’m… I’m not talking so great right now, I’m just so… ahh… desperate for another hit! I got the cash right here, see?” John said, reaching as slow as he could behind him. He knew what to do. He had chosen this line of work for a reason. He could handle the pressure. It would be fine, it would all be fine, he would not get shot. “Can’t wait to get my hands on the stuff. You know how it is, right—I don’t like the drugs, but the drugs like me.”

At the utterance of the code, Manson busted through the back doors, and hit Tony square in the back of the head. The blood hit John in the face, but he didn’t stop to sputter. He hit the ground too, crawling out of the line of any possible fire. Manson ducked and rolled his nimble body, and took out two more men with expert headshots. One more shot back at him, and the bullet whizzed by his face by inches. John watched, and looked around. There was a gun on the ground, Tony’s from where he had dropped it. John stared at the body in morbid fascination, but got up quickly. As Manson tried to reload his gun, John walked right up behind the remaining guard’s head, and without hesitation, pulled the trigger.

He switched the safety on, and tucked the gun. From that moment on, he wanted to do what Manson did… but he’d never enjoy it as much as the other man did. Manson looked up at him, the kid’s platinum blonde hair stained orange with blood. He waited for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t. 5 didn’t break.

Manson got up, and extended his hand. John shook it. They cleaned off a little, and peered out the door.

“Ginger, wherever you are-- bring extra duffels, not just for disposal. There’s too much shit here to leave behind.”

Pogo clucked his tongue. _“Trent’s not gonna be happy, you know.”_

Manson blinked innocently. “Hey. We could cause a drug war if we leave all this in a fucking barn in the middle of LA. Trent doesn’t want the LAPD on our tail, does he?” Manson could hear Twiggy laughing through the piece, and grinned. 

Ginger burst through the doors in record time, shedding the homeless getup and producing the cleanup bags. He got to work dismembering the corpses for easy transportation and disposal. A groan rang out behind them, and Manson turned, cocking his gun. One of them was still alive… must have missed the head. The guy was writhing on the ground, trying to clutch at the gun he still had in his hand.

“You might as well kill yourself,” Manson told him, words cold and empty as he felt, “You’re already dead.”

\---

_ Berlin, 2004. _

17 minutes until they were instructed to initiate. They had a little time to prepare… it was only a routine hit.

“What’s that?” Twiggy asked, glancing down at something Pogo was writing in. 

“My diary. I write about all the girls I wanna fuck in here,” he looked up, smiling sweetly, “Wanna read it and jerk off?” Twiggy just huffed, walking away. He was jittery tonight, and not his usual jittery. Manson wanted to make sure he was alright, but he and Twiggy weren’t exactly on speaking terms right now. Pogo flipped to a new page, scribbling some stuff down. The head of the syndicate walked by.

“You write anything in there about me?” 

Pogo ignored him.

Tensions had risen between them. Things had changed in the syndicate—the dynamic wasn’t the same anymore. Most of the time, everyone was yelling at each other while Ginger tried to keep the peace. John felt they had lost sight of why they did this job in the first place. Pogo had been acting shady, and there had even been a rift between Manson and Twiggy-- in fact, all this had started when the new member of the syndicate had come on.

The Arctic Wolf. That was his code name. Skold was his real name, and for some reason, Manson had taken a liking to him. Twiggy, out of jealousy or just pure stubbornness, hated his guts, and the feeling was mutual. The two couldn’t stand each other, so travel wasn’t as comfortable as it had been. 

“Did Trent brief us on this one already?” John asked, fitting the chain across his chest. They all had to dress the part again for this one—it was a hit on a prominent military leader. Dangerous as hell, but that’s what they lived for. Antichrist was the one syndicate in the world that anyone could trust to take out _anyone_ … they were bigger than Satan now.

The blonde looked to the sharpshooter to answer his question, since Ginger was the only one he could trust to consistently speak to him now. 

“Yeah,” Ginger said, chocolate bar hanging out of his mouth as he zipped his black leather pants up, “We’re uh, taking out a guy who works at the arsenal, I think? He’s selling the weapons and weapon technology on the black market.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Twiggy said.

“Good,” Skold said, loading his gun. “Danger is unavoidable, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ve been doing this as long as you have.” Twiggy shuffled off when Manson didn’t bother to support him. Pogo watched after him, but went back to writing adamantly in his journal. Manson stole a glance. He saw a bunch of formulas, notes, scribbles, and what looked like the inner workings of a mad scientist on the pages. He’d never quite understand the hacker—no one would-- and Pogo probably liked it that way.

Skold and Manson finished loading their weapons and adjusting their uniforms, and stood outside the space they’d set up as their temporary base. The Swedish hitman cupped his hand around a silver lighter with a wolf on it, and brought it to the tip of a cigarette.

“I have been doing this all my life… and I never forget the feeling of watching someone beg for their life,” Skold said. Manson looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Do you enjoy it?”

Skold tilted his head. “Sometimes it’s satisfying. But it’s just a job. That’s all it is. What about you?”

“I…” Manson honestly didn’t know how to answer. Well, he knew the truth. He did enjoy killing. It made him feel powerful, powerful over the things in his life before he became a hitman that he couldn’t control. And that was true, at the start. He was vicious, almost as much so as his codename, or the word that used to haunt him—a murderer. He used to be able to talk to Twiggy about all that. He missed it, but Twiggy reminded him of a part of himself he wanted to forget lately. “I used to like it. A lot. Now, I just feel like I’ve got a hole, and… killing, it doesn’t fill it anymore. It's an addiction... the more I pull the trigger to feel that same rush I felt back in the day, the more numb I get to it." 

“And do you want to quit the life?”

“Hell no. It’s just a dumb feeling, I don’t try to make sense of it.”

“I don’t put much stock into feelings, either. I let my head guide me. If your blood is anything but cold in this line of work… I’ve learned it leads to a loss of stability. I myself don’t like that.”

“Mm.” The two stood together for a while, just watching the quiet Berlin nightlife that they were about to disturb.

“Maybe you’re just tired of being alone. I get that way.”

Manson looked up. “Yeah,” he mused, tucking his shorter black hair behind his ear, “I should get a cat, huh?” All jokes aside, Skold was right, and Manson knew it. He did want something—or someone, to get him through all this. Not a friend, not a partner. Someone completely opposite from him, someone free, someone sane he could forget his insanity with, who would wash away the blood on his hands at the end of the night.

“Operation Grotesque is a go,” Pogo said, and everyone got to where they needed to be. “Remember. This place has got civilians, so direct word from Trent, we only take out the target with as minimal radial damage as possible.”

“ _The military banquet started about an hour ago. People are filing in,”_ Ginger reported.

“Any sign of Helnwein?” John asked.

_“Not yet.”_

“He’ll be there soon,” Manson said, “And we need to be ready. Let’s set up.” He left the base camp before he noticed Pogo’s stare on his back.

They infiltrated the military ball, and Manson took his position. John and Ginger stood behind him, up on the balconies posing as security. Skold was lookout this time, and Twiggy was damage control inside.

 _“Target is on the premises,”_ Skold spoke over their earpieces. Manson made his move. Walking over confidently, Manson extended a hand to the military leader.

“Sir. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

Twiggy kept his eyes trained on Helnwein as he turned to whisper something to his men, noting each and every weapon he seemed to have on him. “Back up, Maz. He’s got you at close range, he’s got two knives.”

“I see the knives, I’m not blind,” Manson muttered.

 _“What the fuck is your problem, Manson?”_ Pogo cut in, _“He’s saving your ass!”_

“You think I need Twiggy to save my ass?! I don’t need Twiggy for shit!” The familiar tugging in his stomach came on as he realized he had again gone too far. But Twiggy didn’t meet his eyes this time for a silent apology.

“You said you were an admirer of mine?” Helnwein turned back around, “I did not think many in America knew who I was. You are American, yes?”

“I have German ancestry, but I don’t speak the language very well.” Manson kept the charade going as Helnwein’s men followed.

“Ah! Interesting. I am flattered that you came all the way here to speak to me. Is that all you came here to do?” Everyone held their breath. “…Or are the sights of Berlin keeping you entertained?”

As they spoke, Ginger and John looked at one another behind their sunglasses, and split.

 _“Target needs to be moved out to the balcony,”_ John observed.

 _“Copy. Balcony has little to no eyes,”_ Twiggy reported, _“Eyes we can easily shut if we need to.”_

“You know, I’ve always been fascinated with Berlin,” Manson said, walking Helnwein toward the balcony. “The art. The fashion, the history. And everything looks so beautiful at night.”

“That is true. I must admit, it is on a balcony like this one that I first met my wife.” He gestured inside to a beautiful brunette, together with a young child. “That is Christina, with my daughter Greta. Why don’t you come in to meet them?”

 _“Shit,”_ Ginger whispered.

 _“Shit!”_ John echoed.

 _“Am I always the last to find out what the shit is?”_ Twiggy sighed.

 _“He’s got his family here,”_ Pogo observed.

 _“And?”_ Skold asked.

 _“And?”_ Twiggy snapped, ready to combat anything the Swede said, _“You’re really gonna kill a kid, wolfman?”_

Manson swallowed the lump in his throat as he whispered back. “The Twiggy I knew five years ago wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

_“Just like you didn’t hesitate on D—”_

“Don’t you dare _fucking_ say it, Pogo.”

Twiggy was silent for a second, drinking down a full glass of champagne. _“Whatever. It is what it is. We do what we gotta do, fuck it.”_

 _“That’s the spirit,”_ Skold said.

_“I am **not** agreeing with you!”_

Pogo sat at the monitor, watching all of them. Manson was standing alone on the balcony. It would be so easy for anyone to take Manson out. His mad-scientist mind started to twist and turn down all the possible avenues, and finally came to a realization. It was easier than it seemed to be.

“There are more guests arriving in what looks like five minutes,” he said, “Skold, we on the same page?”

 _“If they are a threat, I’m ready,”_ Skold replied, looking through his scope from the roof.

“Manson? You’ve got to make a choice.”

_“They’re going back in.”_

“You give the final word,” Pogo said. He reached over to the controls, and hit a button.

Everything rushed into Manson’s consciousness at once. There were easily sixty people in here, all accompanied by families; women, children. In his experience, women were never automatically innocent—screw that—but wives and children enjoying an evening out seemed a little too much here. He turned, and saw Twiggy looking at him from across the room. Manson felt naked, like his friend was staring straight through him, into his flesh. 

“I’ll get him back out to the balconies,” Manson said, “Just him on his own.” But the balcony door had locked shut. “Pogo? Pogo, open the door.”

_“Lock’s jammed.”_

“You’ve gotta open it, Pogo!”

 _“Call it Manson, the whole room’s locked down and people are starting to panic,”_ John said. He and Ginger reached back to their weapons. Outside, Skold saw a group of three military personnel approaching the banquet… and took the first shot.

At the sound of the bullet whizzing, Manson took out his gun, aimed it at Helnwein. Helnwein turned to him, shocked. “Kaboom Kaboom.”

Anarchy descended. John and Ginger hit the target as well, successfully maiming him, and Manson followed the crawling officer. Bullets started spraying from military officials and security guards—the two upstairs hit the ground, taking cover as blood covered the walls, the tables, the floors. Manson finally got to Helnwein, and without thinking twice, finished the job… but the killing didn’t stop.

_This was a shit show. This wasn’t how it happened. They were professionals, this wasn’t how it happened._

Pogo watched the red lock button, frozen in his place as the gravity of what he had just orchestrated hit him.

“Where’s… Twiggy…?” Manson shouted. “Jeordie!” He checked the bodies, dodging bullets. “JEORDIE!”

“Manson, get down!” John shouted, and took out someone behind him from above. Manson turned, shot at whoever he could see, each gunshot and scream getting louder and louder in his ears.

\---

The team sat. Their ears rang with the buzz of all the death they had just witnessed, uniforms and faces covered in the evidence of it.

“He’s gone.”

“Yeah. I’d say the target is gone,” Skold nodded.

“Mutilated, more like,” Ginger whispered.

Manson held his head in his hands, seeing that look his partner gave him on the backs of his eyelids. _“Twiggy_ is gone _.”_

“Maybe he ran,” Skold suggested, unloading his gun.

“He wouldn’t do that. He’s the first to sacrifice himself. He’s not a fucking coward, and I’ll kill you for saying he is.”

“Forgive me. I meant no disrespect toward him. I think you made the right decision, if that’s any consolation.” Skold bowed out of the conversation, keeping his watchful eyes on the others.

“Maybe he’s dead,” Pogo suggested. His voice was uncharacteristically soft, a haunted look in his eyes. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone got caught in the crossfire.” Manson looked up at him, wiping blood from his lips.

“What do you mean, Pogo?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I want you to say it.”

“Nothing’s on my—”

“Say it, Pogo.”

“YOU KILLED DAISY!” Everyone was silent. “Remember him? Cause everyone in Antichrist seemed to forget him!”

“Who’s Daisy?” John asked. Ginger hushed him.

“It wasn’t just you, me and Twiggy. He started Antichrist with us, and maybe you can bury him and forget about him, but I can’t.”

“I didn’t bury shit--”

“It was him or you Manson, and you chose yourself, like you always do. You’re the only one that matters to you. Twiggy was there and he saw it, and I guess he knew it too if he got the hell out of here and is not, in fact, lying dead after you ordered a fucking massacre in there.”

Manson landed a swift punch to Pogo’s face, sending him to the ground. Nobody got in between the two. Ginger was watching quietly, stoically, and John was scared silent. Manson kept punching, and punching, until his fists were bloody and Pogo’s face mirrored the same colour.

“It was an accident that killed Scott. Twiggy knows. He saw it.”

“It was your knife that was stuck in his neck. Quit the bullshit. Operation Sweet Dreams was supposed to be a simple hit… it never should have turned out like that. Scott’s death is on your hands, Brian.” He spat blood. “You can hurt me… you can hurt whoever you want. Beat anybody, if it makes you feel better. But Jeordie’s gone too. Everybody’s gonna leave you.” He started to laugh, a strange sound. “Is this what you wanted? This is what you get. You turned all your life into this shit.”

_Is this what you wanted?_

_This is what you get._

_Is this what you wanted?_

_This is what you get._

\---

_ Venice Beach, 2014  _

You stick the rag into the glass, swirling it around and checking the empty bar. _Nearly_ empty bar.

“He sure looks like a man with a story,” your coworker whispers to you, nodding to the last patron. “He’s got makeup on. Looks like an actor type.”

“The makeup’s hot. It suits him.”

“Yeah, well… I’m punching out. You get to hear about this poor guy’s long painful breakup, how she took his favorite lipstick in the divorce, or whatever he’s down and out about.”

“Fine. Leave me _all_ alone with him,” you feigned dramatically, “I’ll just keep him company until last call, when he’ll beg me to stay open just for him.”

“And you _will_ open… just for him,” she winked, slapping her towel against your scantily clad ass. You nudged her toward the back, and roll your eyes. He wasn’t bad looking… really, very striking. Very tall, with black hair shaved into something of a mullet-mohawk hybrid. It doesn’t look bad on him. He had a tattoo of an upside down cross, with a bunch of scars overtop of it, as if he tried to scratch it off with a razor blade at some point. His eyebrows were thin, like they were struggling to make a comeback. In the same vein, he looked a little washed up, like a rock star trying to rediscover himself at the bottom of a glass.

“You a musician?”

He looked up, around, and realized you were talking to him. “No.”

“An actor?”

“Not really.”

“Performer of any kind?”

“Nope.” He popped his P.

“Good. Now that that’s taken care of-- what’ll it be?” you asked, setting the glass down.

“I don’t know. What are you good at making?”

You quirked an eyebrow. “Cosmopolitans. They’re my specialty.”

“I’ll take a double vodka.” He stared unabashedly down your shirt, bobbling head an indication that this is not his first "double vodka" tonight.

You nodded once, getting busy, and turned back to glance over your shoulder. He was still looking at you, watching your every move. He was drunk, there was no doubt, but there was still a sort of precision in his eyes that intrigued you… something you don’t see in many men’s gazes.

“What’s your story?”

“Don’t have one,” he says. “And you don’t care.”

“I care.”

His finger plays at the lock of hair dangling out of your ponytail. “You want… _tips_ , young lad-y.”

You can’t help but giggle at his hopeless intoxication. “Yeah, if I wanna eat.”

“What if I bought you dinner?”

“Just to be nice, or cause you wanna sleep with me?”

“I want to sleep with you and I wanna be nice. I’m a _nice guy_.”

You consider this, analyzing his darkened eye makeup and hardened, jaded gaze. “You don’t look like a nice guy.”

“You got me. I’m a terrible person. I'm not joking, I am." He hummed. "Guess I do just wanna sleep with you. I’m horny. You look like you could use a rough night, too.”

“What would you do if I said yes?”

“I’d fuck you ‘til sun up, sweetheart, ‘til you begged me to stop.”

You laughed in delight, and took a seat next to him. He turned to you, smirking and sliding his drink toward you for a taste. “Let me start over, like a proper gentleman.” His hand brushed against yours, and you were suddenly lost in his light brown eyes. “So what’s a nice place like this… doin’ round a girl like you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (RIP Daisy <3)


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter: Running To The Edge Of The World

Manson stares at the man on the balcony like he’s a ghost. He very well could be.

“Twig?” Ginger finally whispers. The man steps inside, and Manson can’t speak. Your eyes are wide too. Is it really him?

“It’s been a while,” Twiggy says, running a hand through shoulder length hair. Big arms wrap around him in an embrace so tight it’s tender.

“My god,” Manson whispers, voice cracking. “You’re…”

“Yeah, man.” Twiggy clears his throat. “Yeah, Bri. I’m here.”

After another minute of hugging, the two let go, and Manson turns to you. “(y/n)… I don’t know about introductions, cause you probably already… well, I’ve talked about… fuck, I’m a little drunk. A lot drunk. A lottle drunk… umm…”

“So. You’re the one he’s holding under duress?” Twiggy smirked, approaching you.

“She is with me of her own free will, I’ll have you know,” Manson jabbed a finger into his friend’s back, then spun the lid off a new bottle.

Twiggy takes your hands, and looks you over. “I always knew he’d snag a beautiful girl.”

“Thanks,” you say, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet the man, the myth, the legend.”

“Don’t give him that much credit,” Ginger laughs from the couch, “He’s the biggest asshole I know, aside from Manson!” Twiggy turned, and greeted the two other guys, hugging them.

“Shit, Jeordie. It was turning into a funeral service in here before you arrived,” John says.

“We thought you were extremely dead,” Manson nods. Then, his face changes. He flings the bottle into the wall, sending pieces of glass shattering over Ginger’s head.

“Aw, can you go five minutes without maiming me?!”

“What the fuck am I doing?” Manson advances on Twiggy, who swallows, backing up.

“What… what do you mean?”

“You just show up here, years later, letting me think you were dead?”

“Hold on a second… Bri… Bri— Maz, I’m like a brother to you!”

“Yeah, you are like my brother, my brother who I could… (y/n), I need a word, I’m too drunk for… good words…”

“Pulverize?”

“Too brutish.”

“Strangle.”

“Stealthy. Effective. I like it.”

“Hey— I could kill you first for treating me like you did! And, and you’re forgetting how fast I am!” Twiggy yelped. Manson opened his arms.

“Look at me, and look at you. You think you can take 250 pounds of this?”

You sit down on the couch as John pours you another glass of champagne. “This should be interesting,” you say, and he clinks his glass against yours.

Unfortunately for yours and the rest of the syndicate’s voyeuristic intentions, the match is over in seconds. Manson is winded on his back, with Twiggy restraining him over top.

“Owowow--- alright… to be fair,” Manson groans, “I’m much better with a gun.”

“That much is true,” Ginger nods, shaking the last of the glass shards from his hair.

“So, where were you?” John asks, as Twiggy and Manson take a seat again. Ruvi jumps up on the blonde’s lap, and gets comfortable as he tickles her nose.

“We thought you’d bit in Berlin,” Ginger says.

“I did. Sort of,” Twiggy says, stealing the bottle from Manson. He took a sniff, and made a face.

“What the fuck was that face?” Manson slurs, taking a long drink from a new one.

“Quit drinking.”

“You what--?”

“And drugs.”

“Oh… ohmfmgmmm…” Manson murmurs into his hands, holding his head. He rolls into your lap, placing his head between your legs. “(y/n), hold me. My head hurts at the thought of how fucking hilarious that is.” You shrug, stroking his hair back.

“There’s a reason I faked my death,” Twiggy explains, sitting forward, “I wanted nothing to do with the life anymore. I got into shit pretty bad… more drugs, really bad stuff. I didn’t give a shit for so many years, and it all just suddenly hit me like a train. I fell hard. I lost pretty much everything I had.”

“I can see that. Your eyes have bags under them,” Manson observed.

“Thank you,” Jeordie deadpanned, and resumed his story. “I started stealing, then I ran with some pretty big shot career criminals, a group called Goon Moon. Started doing things real low lives do… just glorified petty thieves, but the money was ridiculous.”

“Did you ever get arrested?” John asked.

“What the fuck do you think?” Twiggy muttered. “Besides, if I did, Trent would erase me in seconds.”

“Trent?” Manson slurred.

“Yeah. We still kept in touch, even though Antichrist was dissolved. Anyway. The only person who knew where I was and that I was alive was—”

“Pogo,” Manson nods, rubbing his forehead. Twiggy gave him a funny look.

“Yeah. He was able to track me. Best hacker in the business, that guy.”

“Was,” Manson mutters. Twiggy looks up at him. No words needed, an understanding passing between them. The shorter man just nods.

“Well… he found me. Tracked me down, like I said. He was still working for Trent too, just on his own. Enjoying the cash flow coming in. But when he found me, he also found who was tracking me.”

Your heartbeat picks up a little. This must have been what Pogo had mentioned to Brian back at the ranch house. Your boyfriend directs his gaze to you, obviously sharing your thoughts, then back to his friend.

“And… who’s tracking you?”

“I don’t know who it is. But they’re good, whoever they are. They’ve gotten too close for comfort.” Being the quickest to deduce (by virtue of being the least intoxicated) John was the first to ask.

“Twigs… why did you come here tonight? Why now?” Manson sits up.

Twiggy looks uncomfortable. “To have a reunion.” When nobody buys that, he looks down. “I was hoping I could get some help from you. Some protection, or something. I didn’t expect everyone else to be here, but that helps.”

“Protection.” Manson blinks. “I thought you could protect yourself. You did all those years… pretending you were dead…”

“I know you can protect yourself,” Twiggy mutters, “You made that clear at the end.” Another look between the two. It was as if they could communicate non-verbally, and this one progressed from heated to hurt to apologetic. Twiggy broke the stare when they had completed the five stages of grief together. “Bottom line. I’m scared, Maz. I always told myself you’d be the one running back to me, but… I didn’t see this coming. I know how to handle situations like these, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m really scared of this person.” That hung heavy in the air.

“How long have they been looking for you?” Ginger asks.

“About a year. I think I lost them somewhere in Spain, then came here. I covered my tracks.”

The silence is finally broken when Manson gives a growl of frustration, picking Ruvi up off of John’s lap in a fit of jealousy. Cuddling her close to his chest, he huffs. “Fuck it! Tonight, I don’t care who wants you dead. Tonight, we’re all getting shit-hammered, and tomorrow we can deal with whoever wants to kill you. Or whatever.”

“Maz—” 

“Nobody’s gonna fuck with you, or me, or anyone. Especially not tonight,” your boyfriend says, pointing at Jeordie. He then turns, and kisses you on the temple. He gets up, crawls along the floor to the table holding all the liquor. He opens a little compartment, and giggles. “Excuse me while I ingest some of my expensive drugs that you no longer partake in, Jeordie.” He bursts into giggles again, pausing only to snort, and you roll your eyes. Ginger shakes his head.

“You know, he was like this before, but… had a higher tolerance for stuff? If that makes sense? Which is weird, since… he’s older now, but… somehow less mature…”

“Nothing about Manson makes sense,” John sighs, “As I’m sure you know.” He shares drinks around, and everyone gets significantly more wasted as the night goes on and the early hours creep by.

Manson stumbles toward the bathroom just past two in the morning, and runs into John.

“Hey,” the blonde says.

“The glory is hole is in there,” Manson slurs, pointing somewhere he didn’t intend to point. John stops him before he can walk past.

“Manson. You know I always had your best interest at heart, right? I always looked out for you?”

Scrunching his face in confusion, Manson answers. “…Yeah.”

“Something’s not right here. I’m not saying it’s Jeordie—of course I trust Jeordie, we all do. The guy was always a bad liar, anyway.”

“Like you?”

“As I remember it, Coma White was a success because of my talent for lying.”

“I shot Wiggins for you.”

“I distracted him.”

“…Whatever. What’s your point, 5?”

“I don’t work with you anymore, so I can say what I want.” Manson took in a breath, bracing himself. “--It’s dangerous to have Jeordie here. I know you’re relieved he’s alive. But if he’s here, don’t you think if this person looking for him’s as good as he says, they’ll find him here? You’re sharper than all of us, man. I know you’ve thought of it.”

Manson puts a hand on John’s shoulder, squeezes a little too tight. “I’m gonna say something, and I’m only gonna say it once. My partner just came back from the dead. I love Jeordie. He’s the brother I never had. If you’re telling me to throw him out to get killed, maybe you don’t take the brotherhood of this job as seriously as I thought.” He leans in closer, the drop in his voice revealing how much this pained him. “We all look out for one another. But I stopped looking out for him, John. As usual,” he gives a wry smile, mockingly crossing himself. “I have to atone for my sins.”

He walks past John, leaving the blonde alone.

Around 3 AM, everyone’s still having a good time. You make grabby hands toward your boyfriend. He trots back to you like a puppy, but transforms into something a lot more predatory once he’s back on top of you.

“Where’s my drink?” you pout, and he blindly fumbles for an open bottle. He passes it to you, and you take a drink from it, wiping your lips. He watches the excess roll down your cheeks, and bites his lip, growling.

“Fuckin’ tease,” he rasps, dragging his teeth down your chin, licking up the alcohol then tasting down your neck.

“I’m not a tease,” you whisper, dragging his hand down between your legs, “You’re just not paying attention.” You rub his fingers against your panties, and he takes over, pulling them aside. Once he feels how wet you are, he chuckles darkly against your chest.

“Babygirl, you know I’m gonna be pounding that.”

“I’m counting on it, daddy.” His hands are a blur as they fumble for your clothes, and you confirm the others in the room are preoccupied on their own drunken escapades before granting him access. John is busy feeding Ruvi (at 3AM?!) Ginger is trying to a back flip and somehow not breaking his neck ("I know taekwondo!" you vaguely register him shouting.) Twiggy is pretending to play guitar with one of the billiards sticks, to a song you hadn't even noticed was playing.

Manson's muffled groans increase in intensity as your fingers find his waistband, and he helps you along with a push of his hips. "You want it?" he whispers, tugging your hair back. You bite your lip.

"Need it."

“I wanna fuck you forever.”

“That would be nice. Start by fucking me now.”

"What a bad girl," he growls, feeling your body writhe in arousal, "Bad, bad little girl." You whine, lifting your hips up.

"Come on. Fuck me."

"I'll fuck you when I goddamn want to," he hisses in your ear, and you marvel at how quick he can pretend to be sober. You moan, grinding down, and he just doesn't have the patience to edge you tonight. Pulling his pants down just enough, he takes his dick out, and you take over. His eyes slide shut as you start to stroke him, and his hands close around your neck, where your silver dagger necklace slips lower.

“No choking while we’re drunk,” you whisper. He moves his hands down to squeeze your breasts instead, and you surge up to kiss him. You part your legs, positioning him, and he sinks into you. You feel him bury himself, inch by inch, and when he’s in to the hilt, he takes a second for you to adjust.

“Who’s my pretty baby?” he breathes into your neck.

“I am,” you gasp, and your mouth falls open further as he finally thrusts. “I’m yours.”

“So tight,” he whispers, “So tight for me.”

“I need your big cock,” you moan, and he swears under his breath, pulling his hips back and fucking in again. He starts up a pace of rolling his hips perfectly, and when you cry out his name, he knows he’s found your g-spot. “Right there, right—ri-ight there,” you beg.

“Cum on my cock,” he growls, moving his hand down to give your clit a rub with the palm of his hand. “Do it, little whore.”

You gasp, holding back a scream, and your walls contract as a powerful orgasm shakes you to your core. Seeing stars behind your eyelids, you open your eyes to see Brian’s brown eyes staring right into yours. His hips stutter, his lips part, and he reaches up to grab your breast as he pumps you full.

He collapses overtop of you. You wrap around him from under his arms, gently trailing your hands up and down his back. He presses a kiss to your collarbone, and you lean down for a real one. Your teeth clash in the hot mess, but you can’t stop kissing.

“Together as one,” he murmurs. Your body flushes as he slips his fingers through yours. 

“Against all others.”

* * *

Your eyes open in the darkness. Rolling over, you realize that at some point during the night, the two of you had actually found your way into the bedroom. As your eyes adjust to the dark, you find a little white ball of fur curled up on Manson's neck.

"Hi baby," you breathe, stroking Ruvi. She lets out a contended purr. "Shh, don’t wake daddy." For a split second, you think of waking up your boyfriend just to have someone for pillow talk, but he looks so peaceful. You smile, moving a piece of hair off of his face. Only you get to see him like this. He stirs, letting out a hum. Peruvia abandons him at the disturbance, and settles instead between the two of you.

"I got a crush..." His voice breaks through the quiet. 

"Yeah?" you smile, playing along.

"Mmm... she's a pretty pistol... should I tell her how I feel?"

"I think she already knows," you whisper, kissing him on the nose. He drifts back to sleep, mumbling incoherently, and you admire how beautiful he is. Still, you know he hates being watched while sleeping, so you make sure he's tucked up alright, and get up. Quiet as a mouse, you creep out of the large bedroom, and shut the door so Ruvi can't follow. The place is dark... but you can hear steady breathing. You press your back up against the wall, and eye Manson’s gun cabinet. You could make it over there if you crawled along the floor.

You sneak along, and unlatch it, grabbing the gun you had practiced with. _What if it’s the one who’s after Jeordie? What if he didn’t cover his tracks as well as he thought?_

Whoever is in the living room would feel the wrath of you, despite the fact that you’re dressed in a frilly black nightgown and still don’t know how to use this gun. You close your eyes, count to three, and whip around the corner. The assailant immediately grabs you, disarms you, and flips you to the ground. You groan, and open your eyes. He's dressed down in a black undershirt, displaying tattoos of parentheses on each of his shoulders. The grip he’s got you in is practiced, from years of training.

"Oh my god, (y/n). Sorry, did I wake you?” It’s just Jeordie. He lets you go and frowns. “Why are you walking around your house with a gun?”

“You got me scared, thinking of that guy who’s following you. What are you doing walking around the house at all?”

He helps you up. “Couldn’t sleep. I can go back to my room, before you shoot me.”

You laugh. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night too. On the extremely rare occasion that Brian isn't awake himself, I have to keep myself busy to get tired again, if that makes sense."

"No, yeah, it does. I'm just surprised you're able to keep a regular sleep schedule with him." You smile, sitting down beside him on the couch.

"Yeah?” 

"Oh, he used to stay up for days. Once, he didn't sleep for four days straight. He kept me up with him too, because of course he did. We were basket cases."

"He doesn't sleep much now either," you tell him. "Except when he's passed out. It's a hard job, I know. It's hard to see how he deals with it sometimes."

"Funny, we all thought he'd be the only one able to handle it long term," Twiggy says. "He enjoys it."

"After a lifetime of it, can anyone really enjoy something like that?"

"I know I couldn't. Manson's good at what he does; the best. But he's not as cold blooded as he thinks. Maybe he was, back when we were young, when we had all that anger to take out. He was scary. Back then, both of us... we did wanna kill people. We became hardworn, automatic. We wanted to end as many lives as we could, because we could. It's different now." Twiggy looks up at you. "He has you. I have... something of a life I'm trying to salvage. You know?"

"Yeah," you whisper. "I'm just glad you're okay. I feel like I've known you forever, without even meeting you."

"Does he talk about me that much?" 

"You're the only person he's ever referred to as a friend." You tilt your head. "That is, before he got bitter about it, and lumped you in with the other 'backstabbing assholes’."

"Sounds like something he would say. We were all assholes," Twiggy said slowly, "But I wouldn't call any of us backstabbing. Not me... not Manson. But one thing’ll never change. He still doesn’t know how to apologize.”

“I find that he apologizes in the little things he does,” you say, “He finds ways.” Your curiosity is tugging at you. You want to know so badly what happened in Berlin. You finally decide against asking. If the memory was as painful for Jeordie as it was for Brian, you didn’t want to bring it up. "Hey. Um, I'm gonna get some air. You want anything while I'm up?"

"I'm good. Gonna head to bed soon, but I won't scare you again. I'm an assassin, I'm good at being quiet," he grins. You squeeze his shoulder.

"That's comforting. I'm glad I've got all you hitmen to protect me," you laugh. “Even though I’m pretty deadly with that gun.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mess with you.” He puts his hands up, and you grin.

“Good to have you here, Jeordie.”

You walk out to the balcony, noticing a plastic sheet down along the ground. Hm. Bates must have had to replace something or other while you two were away.

The night is beautiful. The city streets are alive below you, and you're reminded that there's life outside of all this. Other people living normal lives, doing normal things. You feel the thrill everyday, being a part of something so exciting. You didn’t have to want for anything anymore, or struggle to pay rent. Brian took care of you, and you of him. Sure, you tempted death every day and night of your life, but you did it alongside your soul mate. You glance back over your shoulder toward the bedroom, thinking of your sleeping boyfriend. He could wrap his arms around you and drag you to hell, and you'd like it.

You rest your arms on the railing, smiling to yourself. He'd fucked you here once, the first time you had visited this location. He'd lifted your legs up and sat you on the railing, promising he'd never let go of your legs, not even when he came. And he didn't. He held you tight, and it was the most exhilarating feeling, knowing you could be so close to death yet always pulled back to him. Your eyes close.

You hear a single set of footsteps behind you, and let your hair fall to the side, exposing your neck for him to kiss. "Hey, baby. Wanna reenact our christening of the place?”

You don't feel his lips, though. A blinding pain shoots up your leg as you feel something sharp slice your heel, dripping blood onto the plastic methodically placed there. Your scream is lost in a cloth over your mouth.

* * *

Manson wakes up. By now, his hangovers are mild-- still regrettable, but relatively manageable. He doesn't feel much except for a light headache.

Rolling over, he finds your side empty. Odd for him to have awakened without your head on his chest or stomach, hand splayed over his skin tenderly, but you did tend to get up before him. Ruvi is keeping his feet warm, and when he tries to move them, she glares.

"Move, darling," he says, "Sksk. ‘Scuse me. I have to pee." Ruvi's glare does not relent, so he sighs, scoops her up off his ankles, and takes the kitty with him. She gives an inconvenienced meow, hanging under his armpit. "Little brat. I love you. I love my little brat. Where's mommy, hm? Is she making yummy foods for us, num num?" He nuzzles his nose against Ruvi’s, feeling her tiny teeth scrape him, then sets her down in the bathtub so she can lick the water dripping from the faucet. 

"Are you making bacon?" he calls. No answer. “If you feel like getting spoiled, I can't order food to the penthouse, but I can order it to the lobby. I’ll make John get it." Still nothing. The others must not be up yet, which means it's a perfect time to pull up your nightgown and fuck you over the kitchen counter while you complain about how unsanitary that is.

He laughs to himself as he scratches his stomach where his shirt is riding up, and moves to the mirror. When he's freshened up the bare minimum, he stalks out to the hall, and walks down. He shivers. No heavenly smell of breakfast wafting from the kitchen, and no sight of you wagging your ass in a short, enticing shirt of his.

"(y/n)?" he calls, morning voice low and gravelly, "I've got an erection that has your name on it, I hope that that mouth isn't busy." Still no answer. Maybe you were fucking with him. Maybe you were mad at him. "I mean..." he tries, "I can jerk off. Just thought you'd want a little something before breakfast."

"Maybe she'd rather not suck your nasty cock until you've had a shower, buddy," Ginger says, looking up from his laptop. Manson startles a little, and looks around for a jacket he can put on. He hates anyone other than you seeing him before makeup and just out of bed.

"When did you get up?"

"4:30."

Manson pulls on the jacket, doing up all the buttons over his white t-shirt. "I heard Jeordie up last night too. Do any of us actually sleep properly?"

"John does." 

"Alright. Butt out of my sex life, unless you wanna blow me." Ginger makes a slicing motion at his neck as the taller man mopes, going to find a cinnamon roll or two or ten, or a cookie or something he can have for breakfast in your absence. A better man would have started some food for you. Manson was not a better man, but he made no bones about that.

"Uh, hey-- you might wanna shut the balcony door," Ginger goes on, "Cold as hell."

Manson's heart begins to hammer. "What?"

"The balcony door. It's--"

"Shit, shit, shit..." Manson mutters, panic taking over. He looks outside on the balcony, gets on his knees level with the stone. No trace of anything, except a single strand of your hair. "Someone took her. Kenny, she's gone."

* * *

The place is trashed.

Everyone's up now, subject to Manson's explosive realization that you had been taken in the night. The leftover bottles from the night before had since been drained.

"I had one prerogative, one fucking thing I told myself I had to do, and I couldn't even do that."

"She, uh… seemed pretty tough. Able to handle herself," John offered. “I don’t know her very well, but—”

"Fuck off. She's my girl. I'm supposed to protect her. I don't know who took her. They could've been better than me. Better than all of us." He shook his head, feeling dizzy as he sat down, whispering to himself. "Pogo was fucking right. This is what I wanted, this is what I get."

Twiggy looks around, stares in temptation at the half empty bottle, then resists. He goes after the other hitman instead, opting for a soft approach. "Hey. Where's the Maz who used to make people pull their own triggers?"

"Dead," Manson moans.

"No, he--"

"Dead, he's gone, he's..." He stumbles over a statue of something you thought was nice. "Fuck... ow... I’m useless. I can’t protect the woman I love, I’m a corpse of what I used to be." He set a bottle on the floor spinning. “I used to be a fucking _badass_.” The bottle stopped at Twiggy, and he tried to get a kiss. Twiggy gently eased him away instead, almost vomiting at the smell of all the vodka.

"Come on, man." John comes over. "You're stronger than you know."

"Fuck your Hallmark sympathies, John," Manson mutters, face down on the floor, "They don't mean shit."

"Fine, fuck you! Let me pour you another!" 

"Okay, okay." Ginger timidly steps in. "You guys get too heated with each other, this is how every disagreement used to turn out."

"Yeah. Well. History repeats itself," Manson growls. John’s face is red.

"You're so lucky I haven't put a bullet in you yet on account of--"

“Wow."

"--on account of you being an asshole to the people who care about you, and for that reason alone!" John yells. Everyone is quiet for a few moments. Ginger finally gets up with John, and the two leave the room in stifling silence.

"Jeordie." Manson sounds as broken as he looks. “Jeordie? You still there?” Twiggy’s heart breaks a little.

"Yeah. I’m still here.”

"I'm killing her just by being with her. I should have left her there, in that bar. I always have to take something beautiful and destroy it, I can’t just leave it alone.” Manson sniffs. “It’s just like what happened with him." It takes him a second, but Twiggy realizes what he was saying.

"You and I both know Pogo was full of shit. About everything, and especially about that."

"Maybe we're remembering it wrong... mmm... what's that called? Mass hysteria? No... the other thing... collective… the something effect… whatever… _ouch_ , my brain hurts... where’s my cat?"

"Brian, listen to me. We both saw what we saw. At least I did. I remember it, even now. It was one of the moments of clarity I can picture from those days." He shakes his head. "You didn't mean to. You could barely see in that old place. When you realized it was him that you... when you realized, you tried everything to get him back. Pogo was... I don't know what the fuck, he just had to find someone to blame. You were a scapegoat. You didn't want to kill Daisy, Bri. It was an accident. You didn't kill him, and you didn't kill (y/n). She’s still out there."

A tear rolls down Manson's cheek, and he wipes it away with his trailing eyeliner. Twiggy sits on the floor beside Manson. He eventually changes positions to mimic his partner's, facing the ceiling instead of the floor.

"This situation really fucking sucks ass."

After a five second period of silence, Manson finally flips over. "Yeah."

"What are we gonna do about it?"

"You're not gonna do shit.”

“If it’s the guy after me that took her, then this is my fault.”

Manson groans. “Yeah. And I thought about killing you, but that’s not good for my mental health right now. This was as good a wake up call as any, I guess.”

“It’s my fault, Maz.”

“No. You're gonna die if you help me."

Twiggy shrugs. "I've died before. I’m ready to do it again."


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter to make up for the wait!  
> Why did I decide to make Tobias Forge a helicopter pilot in this fic? *Manson voice* No fuckin reason. 
> 
> Song for the chapter: We Know Where You Fucking Live

The bag is pulled off your head, the sudden bright light assaulting your senses. You adjust to your surroundings, trying to deduce where you could be. You’re indoors, and the furniture around you looks nice. Cozy. "Where are we?" you demand, voice croaking. You hear your kidnapper’s voice behind you, along with some rustling.

"We're in Whistler, BC."

"We're in Canada?!" you blurt. You try to crane your neck to see who it is behind you, but your arms are tied too tightly behind your back to the chair. Your skin is a little raw, but it doesn’t hurt as much as your slashed tendon does.

"Yes," the man murmurs, and you hear the sound of a drink being poured. "I can't very well go back to Sweden. That's where they'll be looking for me first."

 _Sweden._ Whoever took you, is from Sweden. You rack your brain to try and think of someone who knows Brian or Twiggy who’s Swedish, but you come up blank. Brian never mentioned anyone like that. Closing your eyes again, you try to picture the faces in the Antichrist photograph. Disorientation clouds your memory, and you let out a huff of frustration. Then it dawns on you with creeping horror… whoever this man is, he might not even know any of them. Then there’d be noc trace. Clearing your throat, you continue to engage him in conversation.

"Who will be looking for you in Sweden?"

The man smirks behind you, and finally takes a seat opposite your chair. You look over his form, his hooded eyes shadowed like Manson’s. He was a part of the Antichrist, you recognize his face. _Tim Skold_. "I don't think I have to tell _you_ that you make a lot of enemies in this line of work."

"You know, you have a lot more in common with my boyfriend then you probably know," you sigh.

“Oh, I know very well." He shrugs. "I always respected Manson. You seem respectable as well, and I deeply regretted having to do this."

“I can see that you’re all broken up,” you scoff. He smiles.

“I am more formidable than many people my employer could have sent to take care of my hit.” 

“Skold. That’s your name, right? I thought you were a gun for hire,” you reply.

“Ah. So Manson does talk about me still,” he nods, swishing the drink around. “I am. My gun was hired to put a bullet in Twiggy.” He tilts his head. “I can’t say I’m broken up about that one.”

Ignoring your curiosity at the history there, you sigh. “Would you please tell me what we’re doing in fucking Canada?”

He leans forward. “I am in need of a glacier. Whistler has an abundance of them. It is cold, I like a cold climate. I have a safe house here… more of a safe cabin… and I needed one of those. So, the logical thing to do was to bring you here.”

“Is this where you live with family when you’re not out kidnapping people’s girlfriends?”

He offers you a sip of your own drink he’s poured, and you imagine spitting it back in his face. Then again, you think back to the last time you were tied up… in Pogo’s place. The looks he had given you, salacious eyes and comments that made you shiver in disgust. Skold seemed to be making no such advances, eyes staying respectfully raised to yours, and the fact that you were still wearing your own clothing plus an added parka was comforting enough. You accept the sip begrudgingly, and he nods, setting the glass down after.

"I had a wife, she was killed. I hope Manson knows how foolish he was for bringing you into all of this… however that meeting came to pass.” He shakes his head, distracted by a thought. “I'm certain he does, he just doesn't care." 

"How dare you? He would give his life for me."

"Apparently not," Skold hums. "Oh, he’ll find us. That’s what I’m counting on. But it has been a while.”

“He’s not a master hacker, he can’t pinpoint locations. He killed the only guy that could really help him find you.”

Skold lets out a laugh. “ _Jävla helvete._ I knew Pogo would run his mouth into the barrel of a gun one of these days. He was the only one I’d seen since my days in with the Syndicate. He knew where I was, and he had the genius to tell where I was going. Now that he is dead, it does complicate things.”

“He’ll find a way,” you say, as if in reassurance to yourself. “He’ll find me one way or another.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that Manson only cares about one person—himself. Don't forget, I knew him long before you did. Every incarnation of a person lives on a little bit in who they become. You can never be rid of who you were."

"At least Brian's trying to be the best he can be," you snap, "Look at you. You're bitter because of your dead wife."

"I am not bitter. My wife is dead, there’s nothing I can do to change it, so why would I be bitter? This is not a crime of passion," he says, "On the contrary, I've always been a cold blooded man. I don't run from that. That is the best I can be."

You shiver, maneuvering your wrists around. There’s no way you can trick your way out of these. You’re completely at the Arctic Wolf’s mercy.

* * *

The call rings. And rings. And rings.

“He’s not gonna answer,” Ginger sighs.

“He has to, he runs a cartel.”

“He’s probably watching that Universal Horror classics thing, you know? 666 days of horror, or something…”

“Yeah, well I would too if I wasn’t on a job or stuck here in all this, so—”

The call finally picks up. _“5. Mission’s in the bag?”_

“The hit’s dead as a doornail, sir,” John nods, and Ginger pops his head into view of the camera.

“Hi, Rob.”

_“Ginger, you didn’t kill any civilians by accident, did you?”_

“I’m a sharp shooter for a reason, Rob.”

_“You’ve got an eye patch, and you’re slightly insane.”_

Ginger sighs. “Fair enough. Nah, I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Listen,” John starts, “We got a question for you.”

 _“What is it, man? I’m on day 56 of the 666 days of Universal Horror.”_ John’s lips form a tight line, and Ginger stifles a laugh.

“We need to go away for a few days.”

Rob finally looks at the camera over his sunglasses. _“What, you need a place to lay low? How many tabs did people have on this David guy?!”_

“No, no. It’s for a…”

Ginger cuts in. “It’s for an old friend.”

“Aww,” Manson murmurs from where he’s sitting.

_“Who?”_

“You remember we used to run with a guy named Manson?”

 _“Manson?!”_ Rob groans loudly. _“Aw fuck, man. You ran into that fuckin’ asshole?”_

Manson joins the two. “Hi, Rob.”

_“Shit. Of course.”_

“It’s only for a few days,” Ginger says, “It’s something real important. We just needed the OK from you, so you don’t think we went AWOL.”

 _“Answer’s no. Absolutely not,”_ Rob shakes his head.

“What?” John mutters. “Rob—” 

_“I need you two. You two, me and Piggy? We’re tight as I’ve ever had an operation. I lose one of you, my whole thing falls apart.”_ He shakes his head again. _“Besides, I don’t trust Manson. Where he can’t find trouble, he starts it.”_

“Still here,” Manson pipes up.

 _“Good, listen up! You send those two back to me or so help me god,_ I _will summon Satan himself to dig up your asshole and find your brain for you!”_

“Roger that,” John sighs, and goes to end the call.

 _“Oh, John—your favorite movie is on this weekend,”_ Rob mentions, _“Creature From The Black Lagoon. When you get back to LA, we’ll throw it on with a couple beers.”_

John marvels at the laid back attitude of the man who employs him to kill people, and smiles. _“Yeah. Sure.”_

The call ends, and the group disperses throughout Manson’s living room. Everyone lets the less than satisfying outcome of the video call settle in their minds in the quiet.

“Fuck it,” Ginger finally says. Manson looks up, as does Twiggy.

“What does that mean?” Twiggy asks. “What are we fucking?”

“I’m going with you guys to find her,” he says, sitting down cross-legged on the couch.

“Ging, you can’t be serious,” John says. “Rob, he—”

“Operation Zombie is great, and Rob’s given us everything. But Pig's the new kid, he's sharp and he know what he's doing. He'll cover while we're gone. These are my roots, man. This is who I was, these are the people I grew up with. I can’t turn my back on them when we’re in the thick of it.” He looks up sympathetically. “I know you weren’t with us as long, John. I know it’s not the same for you.”

“Don’t give me that,” John snaps. “I ran with you guys when I was just a kid, and I’ll never forget those years.” He’s quiet for a minute. “I became who I am now through everything I did.”

“John,” Manson sighs. “You don’t have to stay to help me get my girl back. I treat you like shit. I did then, I do now. Go tell Rob I returned his best boy.”

John stalls for a moment, looking down at the group. At the faces of the people he used to wake up next to in far off countries, faces that had shown fear, contempt, relief, faces that had been sweat soaked, blood covered, and caked in dirt. Manson, who he had seen a mentor in at first, had spat that back in his face, but he had found a friend in him instead as they grew up, and now again when they had crossed paths. He had spent his whole life as a professional striving to do the right thing in a world of backstabbing, bullets and death. This time, now that you had been taken, he knew with dawning clarity that this was it. This was the right thing among all the wrong things he’d done.

“Count me in,” he says. 

* * *

It’s early morning. You had been watching the sun come up over snowy hills since 3 am, unable to sleep. Finally around 6 am, the sound of someone rising, going through their morning routine and approaching you alerted you that your whereabouts were about to change.

Skold unties your bindings. “It’s a good thing you’re married to a hitman. We know all the secrets—like not to thrash and wriggle around in ropes all night. Smart girl. That just invites infection, for which I would have little sympathy.” He gestures down. “Your ankle, on the other hand, I was able to have someone superficially sew up. You can’t go anywhere, but you won’t be bleeding all over the place.”

You look down to your sore ankle, inspecting the clean stitches, and hum. “We’re not married, by the way,” you mutter, rubbing your wrists. “Brian and I.”

“Sorry. If you two ever do tie the knot, I would love to come to the ceremony.” You huff at the joke, and he grins. “You’ve caught me before coffee, and I’m in a good mood. Miracles never cease.” He brews himself some as you watch carefully. When he turns to pour it, he turns slightly. “It may look like the old winter cottage you used to visit during Christmas break, but this place is locked down with high security and activated laser technology. If you ran right now, you would be cut into a billion little cubes.” He turns to give you a pointed, deadpan look. “Again. Little sympathy there.” You shiver, and tug the parka tighter. He had no fire lit, or even a heating system really. You guess that made sense, as paying for hydro would require a credit card, and lighting a fire would alert people someone was home. “We’re going to go for a little hike today, where you’ll get to meet a friend of mine,” he tells you, stirring sugar into his milky coffee. “Just let me put my face on first.”

Twenty minutes later, you’re escorted to a large black van tied at the wrists a little looser this time but a bag over your head once more, and loaded inside. Uncomfortable but somewhat able to sit normally, you endure the bumpy ride up what you can only picture to be an offroad with a steep incline, icy at times judging by the occasional slip of the back tires.

Skold mumbles something in Swedish to the driver. _“Jag trodde att du sa att vi installerade vinterdäcken.”_ The driver responds in a low grumble, a short protest of sorts to whatever the blonde had said. Swedish is one language you hadn’t learned, so you let it slip, and hope they weren’t discussing where they would dump your body once the car finally stopped.

Stratifying this anxiety, the car does stop seconds later. There’s a pause, and you hear some shuffling around outside. Then the door opens, and rougher hands pull you out than the graceful ones that had put you in. You knew at once they weren’t Skold’s.

“Where are we?” you try to ask, but biting cold steals your breath. You cough, and the bag is pulled off your head once again. A large man stands to your right—who you assume to be the driver-- and Skold stands opposite you beside a short man with black hair, aviator sunglasses, and a leather jacket by a helicopter. He must be used to this weather too, you think, shivering in your parka. You observe in amusement the Iron Maiden pin on his lapel.

“He goes by Tobias,” Skold tells you as he lights a cigarette, sharing one with the pilot as well. He says nothing further in introduction, and the man nods to you once, before turning to the blonde. They exchange a few words in Swedish, and a wad of cash is exchanged through a handshake. Tobias lights up too, and the two stand for about ten minutes as you wait around, Skold doing most of the talking. He's obviously briefing the man on what all this was about... or what he could share with him, depending on how paid off he was. 

“Okay. I’ll be taking her from here,” Skold informs the burly driver once the two are done their smoke. Driver lets you go and hands you over to the hitman. Skold helps you limp over to the helicopter, and you’re loaded in there next. As you get strapped in, your heart beats wildly. Flying in private jets with Manson was one thing… flying in a helicopter in some winter wasteland you’d never seen before was another.

“Don’t worry,” Tobias tells you, flicking a couple switches. “Flying in a helicopter is even safer than crowd-surfing, you know.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that at the next concert I attend, if I make it out of this alive,” you shoot back, looking down to see that you’re double buckled. The brunette Swede chuckles, and Skold fits a pair of mufflers over your ears, then does the same with himself. The helicopter begins to move, and you catch a glimpse of a sign that reads Blackcomb Mountain. You hold your breath, hoping Manson was making headway trying to find you. 

After fifteen minutes of the most breathtaking views you’d ever seen, the copter finally lands on a glacier. It’s beautiful, and Skold seems amused that you’re eating your words.

“See why I’m a cold weather person?” he smirks, and unbuckles you before helping you out. He exchanges a few words with Tobias again, and the pilot gets out as well. 

“Won’t have to worry about anyone finding us up here, unless they know where they’re going. Up here, we’re nothing but ghosts.” He grabs the bags, and your kidnapper takes your arm.

“This way,” Skold says, and leads you toward a small, lone cabin built from misshapen wood. Tobias grabs a large sack full of iron poles, and begins hammering them down into the snow in case you need to find your way through a blizzard to the outhouse. His navy blue winter boots, lighter in colour than Skold’s own jet black combats, have to fight not to sink into the deep snow.

You look around at all of this and marvel at the lengths he’s going to to make sure you’re as inaccessible as possible. “Why does killing Jeordie White mean this much to you?”

He looks back at you, wind whipping his shards of platinum hair out of his eyes. “I’m given a job, I get the job done.”

* * *

Manson drums black fingernails along the table. “In order to find her, we first need to figure out who the hell took her.” Twiggy purses his lips. 

“I told you I don’t know who was targeting me. I don’t know who has a price on my head either, and that one, I could do without knowing.”

“How are we supposed to figure it out then?” 

“Absinthe,” Manson nods, and John sighs.

“Really? More drinks?” Manson points at him.

“Absinthe has given me my greatest insights into everything I’ve done in the past, don’t fuck with a good thing.” He goes over to grab his bottle that he hasn’t touched for over a decade, and stops when he sees Pogo’s journal. “Fucker,” he mutters, and just as he’s about to grab the bottle and walk away, he starts to think back to what Pogo said to him back in his house with you, about trying to find Jeordie and the disaster it would bring. He knew something he hadn’t said out loud for obvious reasons, and it seemed to be that he knew who was after Twiggy. He gives the book a second glance, and something catches his eyes. Etched into the bottom right corner of the journal’s cover is a small symbol.

_The symbol for Mercury._

Manson stomps back out to the living room, absinthe forgotten. “The Mercury symbol means communication. The asshole’s got something in here.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Twiggy asks, and eyes the book.

“Pogo’s journal.”

“I thought this thing would lead me to you. Instead, it’s gonna lead us to (y/n).”

“Hang on,” John puts his hands up. “We all saw what it says in there.”

“He screwed us majorly,” Ginger nods. Manson shakes his head.

“Pogo knew a lot about the occult. He knew numerology, runes, encoding, all that crap. There’s something else in here we didn’t see. We didn't look deeper cause we were so pissed.”

“Encoding?” Jeordie looks around at everyone. “I did a lot of that trying to break into places the last few years, deciphering passwords to buildings we had to break into and stuff. I got pretty good at it.”

Manson opens the journal, and hands it to Jeordie. Twiggy looks down to read.

 **_If_ ** _you’r **e** **r** e **a** ding this, I’m dead. **B** e **c** au **s** e o **f** you. Y **O** U KI **LL** ED ME, YOU **A** S **S** HO **LE**! **I** KNEW **IT**! Godd **a** m **n** it._

_You **rea** l **l** y t **hin** k I’d **be** **s** tu **pid** **e** n **o** u **gh t** o l **ea** ve t **h** is **th** in **g** **l** aying ar **o** und **wit** h everyt **h** ing **I** **had** **i** n my **b** rai **n** **f** or you t **o** **re** ad? Tha **t** made me DI **S** P **O** SAB **LE**! **W** e **ll** , con **g** ra **tu** lations **Manson**. Y **o** u just ki **ll** ed the **l** a **s** t **p** erson **wh** o kno **ws** **wh** ere **Twiggy** **i** s._

_On **e** la **st** lau **g** h. Ev **e** n i **f** it i **s** my la **st** laugh. _

_-L **o** vingly, Th **e** **M** ad **C** l **ow** n_

“Some of the letters are written darker than the others,” Twiggy says immediately. “Different ink. It’s the same as identifying keypads for lock codes, whichever keys are lighter, stuff like that.”

“Lemme see,” Ginger says, and sits down with the book. “I can see inconsistencies easier with one eye, sight's real sharp in the good one.” He gives it a look over, then looks up. “Twiggy, got a pen?”

About ten minutes later, they had come up with a long list of all the bolded letters:

_i f e r a b c s f o l l a s l e i i t a n r e a l h i n b e s p i d e o g h t e a h t h g l o w i t h i h a d i b n f o r e t s o l e w l l g t u m a n s o n o l l l s p w h w s w h t w i g g y e s t g e f s s t o e m c o w_

“Great. Anagrams,” Twiggy sighs. “Long ass ones. Thanks, Pogo.” He holds up his hands. “All of you fuck off and give me five minutes.”

“Five minutes?” Manson scoffs. “You couldn’t do four times four mental math.”

“I learned math! Look, if I don’t figure this shit out, we’ll never find her. We don’t have time to sit around all night on this.”

John looks down at the list of letters. “Look at all that. How do we know it’s not gonna lead to another dead end? He’d get a real kick out of leading us on, I’m sure.”

“Pogo was deliberate,” Manson mutters. “Whether it’s another fuck you or not, the symbol on the front means he wants us to know something. We’ve got to try anything at this point.” Twiggy shoos everyone away.

“Okay then! Go do something and let me work!”

Manson beckons John and Ginger over to the shelves, and they join him. “Look at us,” Ginger grins suddenly. The other two men look down, and see that Ginger is holding the photo of all of them.

“Jerusalem,” John mentions. “When you got thrown in prison, Manson.”

“I got out.”

“Thanks to the, uh… ‘mad clown,’” Ginger laughs.

“As he frequently reminded me.”

“You’d be rotting in there if it weren’t for him.”

“Fuck you Kenny, I would’ve found another way out. Twiggy would’ve blown something up or something.”

“Again, depending on someone else.”

“What are you trying to say?” Manson narrowed his eyes at the sharp shooter. Ginger just smiles wistfully.

“That everyone needs someone, even when you feel it’s you against the world.” Manson's glare softens, before he makes a face.

“That’s fucking sappy.” He looks back up. “But I’m glad you guys are with me. I can get where I’m going, but I guess I wouldn’t know where to start without you.”

“HEY!”

The three turn back to Twiggy, who’s holding the successfully unscrambled message.

“How the hell did you do that?” Manson mutters. Twiggy grins, holding up a small decoding device. They gather back around him, Ginger and Manson beside him and John on the opposite side, and see what Twiggy’s written out.

_in arctic where he hides in sight_

_he'll slip away before a fight_

_blow me Manson, don't spit but swallow_

_sites twiggy goes, the wolf shall follo_

“Blow yourself, Pogo,” Manson mutters.

“It might not be right,” Ginger shakes his head, picking up the original, un-isolated message. “It has to match flawlessly, doesn’t it? Where’s the last W?”

“Right here,” John says, and drops his finger on the M of “Mad Clown” in the original. “The M is the only red letter on the entire page. Upside down, it’s a W.”

“ _Follo-w_ ,” Twiggy whispers as he pens in the last w to complete the riddle.

“What’s he talking about, ‘arctic’?” Ginger asks.

“Whistler,” Manson says, surprised at how fast he had remembered. “Not arctic per say, but Pogo didn’t know shit about geography. Skold told me he had a place in Whistler once, he uses it as a safe house.”

“A little slip up on his part, telling you that,” Twiggy clucked his tongue, looking particularly satisfied with this. “Knew it was bound to happen, Mr. Cold and Calculating.”

“Alright, fuck him royally, but don’t make it personal,” Manson says. “We’re gonna take him out cause we know where he fuckin’ lives, but if you use this as some sort of revenge for a decade ago, you’ll definitely get yourself killed.”

Twiggy nods, and the others all get up, heading off to prepare to leave in the jet. Most equipment is borrowed from Manson’s cabinet, as John and Ginger only had the essentials for the Berlin job on them and Twiggy didn’t have anything at all.

“Wait,” Manson calls. A cat’s meow rings out, and everyone looks down at the fluffy white kitty. “We need to make a stop in LA first to drop this one off before my baby gets caught in the crossfire.”

* * *

The wind is whipping by the windows of the small cabin, the shabbily nailed together planks of wood doing little to keep it out. Skold has a fire going in the small hearth, and the pilot or manservant or whatever the hell he was is busy roasting something over it for dinner.

The hitman had given you free reign of the place without restraints, seeing as you were trapped in a cabin on the top of a mountain with a bad ankle and no access to knives except those on his person. It was safe to say you couldn’t escape without taking a tumble down an icy wall, which is something you didn’t want to do. Whatever threats Skold had made before seemed far away at the moment, and you weren’t worried at present.

“What are you making?” you ask Tobias, walking over.

“Dinner,” he replies.

“For your boss?”

Tobias turns to you, raises an eyebrow. “For me. And he’s not my fucking boss. I just know how to fly the thing out there, which is key in your…” He gestures to you, frowning a little bit. “Potential fate.”

“For someone who’s in on an assassination plot, you don’t seem to comfy with the thought of my death.”

“I don’t know you. I don’t know what you did, or what you’re being used for. But I wish whoever’s supposed to come get you would, so the right bullet would find the right person.”

You think about this, watching him move the logs with a fireplace poker. “You seem like you have a conscience.”

“Not really.” He tilts his head, considering. “Sometimes.” Tobias' gaze lingers on your lips too long, and you put a little more distance between the two of you. 

“Do you actually think he’s gonna do it?” 

Tobias turns back to his food, averting eye contact. “Yes.” 

“Hey,” Skold says, getting up from the sole bed in the corner. “It makes me uncomfortable, how quietly the two of you are talking. Mrs. Manson… if you will?” You get up, and sit down in a chair by the window. Skold hands you some canned food, and sits down himself to eat. “Now, I have a chance to explain what this is,” he gestures to a small ticking device with the time blinking on it.

“Is it a bomb to start an avalanche?” you scoff. Skold looks up at you, sultry eyes devoid of any previous amiability.

“No. It is the amount of hours you have left before I tie a rope around your neck and hang you from the helicopter.”

Your heart skips a beat, and you glance back over to Tobias. He seems utterly unaffected, and the last shred of hope you had from possibly making an alliance with him withers.

“You think he would help you?” Skold leans forward. “For $30,000, he’s the one who will be piloting the helicopter during your unfortunate fall.” You exhale, heart hammering in your chest. Skold shrugs. “But don’t worry. Manson and his band of Oompa Loompas will track you down. They’re as good as I am, if not better.”

“You’re the most honest kidnapper I’ve ever had,” you huff, head still swimming from the revelation that your impending doom would be coming sooner than you had thought.

“How many kidnappers have you had?” the hitman asked.

“What,” you breathe, “You’ve never role-played in bed before?”

Skold smirks. “I enjoy you. It will be a shame if Manson doesn’t put his brain power to good use to come for you.”

You eat in relative silence, the wind picking up even more. It almost sounds as if there’s a blizzard raging outside, and you have visions of the little cabin getting swept off the side of the mountain you’re perched upon. You’d give anything right now to be dressed up in your favourite little black gown, looking pretty for your love. He’d stare up at you in approval, fingers opening up as he beckons you to him. You hold the little diamond dagger hanging off the dainty chain around your neck, thinking of green eyes.

After dinner, Skold takes out his weapons for polishing, and you grasp for any straws, any reason to be alone with your thoughts without a watchful eye on you.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

Skold barely looks up. “The outhouse is out there. Feel your way along the poles set up outside.”

You nod, and open the door. The wind stings your face, and you squint through the blustery snow in the direction of the poles. You can barely make them out in the white-out, but you feel for the first one and successfully grasp it. You take stunted step after step, feeling like crying out at the ankle pain, and just as you’re about to make it to the small wooden hut, you feel a hand on your shoulder. You go to scream, but you’re quickly turned around by two hands. The perpetrator takes his hands off you and puts them up immediately. 

Tobias holds a finger up to his lips, and looks behind his shoulder. “You have until tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM sharp. If your Manson guy doesn’t come to get you out of here and bring this Twiggy guy with him to line his head up at the barrel of Skold’s gun, you’re a lamb to the slaughter.”

You sniff. “I prefer to be seen as a wolf.” 

“No, no." He looks genuinely scared. "The wolf is in there, and he will tear your throat out if it means business as usual.”

“Why are you telling me all this out here, while I’m trying to go to the bathroom?” 

He takes your arm, pulls you closer so he can lower his voice beneath the gusting blizzard. “Tomorrow at 2:55 PM when we get to the helicopter to string you up, I’ll shoot him.”

“Wh…” You’re stunned silent for a second. “H-he’s a hitman. You think you can do that?” You look him up and down in doubt.

“I’m packing too, you know,” he says, making a finger gun and cracking the closest thing to a crooked-but-charming smile you’ve seen on the somber man yet. You don’t have a chance to ask him why he’s helping you before he heads back inside, gathering some logs by the door to have an alibi for his excursion.

That glimmer of hope returns. 

* * *

It’s just gone midnight as the remote jet touches down in Los Angeles. Manson dials Bates on his phone, and holds it up to his ear.

“Send a car.”

A weary voice responds on the other end. “ _Who is this?”_

“You know who it is. I need a car to the Loma Vista landing strip.”

_“To Germany? I don’t think so, Manson.”_

“Nah, I’m practically in your backyard, Bates.”

_“Then why do you need a car?”_

“Don’t be a smart ass, that’s my job.”

_“You know, normal people sleep when the sun goes down!”_

“Assassins aren't normal people, in case that isn't obvious. Send me a car.”

_“I don’t want to deal with you getting arrested by an LAPD beat cop on the graveyard shift for a DUI. Too much paperwork bailing out a grown man who technically doesn’t exist.”_

“Send me someone to drive it too then! You know what I mean.” He hangs up, and shoves the phone back in his pocket. Not five minutes later, a dark car pulls up. “After you,” Manson says, escorting Twiggy, John and Ginger in. He settles in himself with his beloved Peruvia in his lap.

"Do you want us to come up too?" Twiggy asks awkwardly.

"No. Bates doesn't know I know you. He doesn't even know who you are, and he doesn't need to."

Once they make it up to the large, modern mansion in the Hollywood hills, Manson gets out and walks up to the door, the rest of the group out of sight waiting in the car. Before he can knock, it swings open. The head of the Loma Vista cartel stands, in a powder blue bathrobe, half his hair tangled from sleep.

“I see Berlin went well.”

“I didn’t die.” Manson opens his arms.

“Congratulations. Why are you here?”

Manson drops the little ball of fluff to the ground, where she gives a longing mew at the loss of her dad’s body heat. She struts in past the two into the house.

“No,” Bates shakes his head.

“Aww look, she’s made herself at home,” Manson smiles, pointing past the shorter man to where Ruvi was digging her nails into the rug.

“She is your cat, and she hates me for some reason.”

“Interesting. Cats have an intuition you should always listen to.”

“Manson—”

“I’ll see you in a day Bates, I've got business to attend to."

"What business?!"

"None of your damn business! Tell my little darling girl I love her!” he calls, already hopping back into the car. Ruvi blinks her big blue eyes up at Bates, who sighs, swinging the door shut with a bang.

* * *

You roll over on the floor by the doused fireplace, where you had been designated to sleep. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was a good way to keep you in sight, you supposed. A couple of musty blankets had been rolled out for you to sleep on top of, so it wasn’t all bad. Of course, sleeping in a cabin would be much cozier with Manson’s arms around you. 

You shiver at the absence of his usual body weight pressed up against you from behind, and bite your bottom lip. Having someone behind you right now would be enough. You just wanted to be held in a pair of arms, someone who could make you feel better, distract you from tomorrow. As you close your eyes, you start to imagine Tobias behind you, grinding against you through those tight jeans and whispering softly in your ear how he wanted this from the minute he saw you. You stifle a sigh, and imagine how hard he'd be for you, and the feeling of grinding back against his cock, making him a desperate mess for you. You squirm under the blankets, frustrated and longing. You bet by the way he was looking at you earlier that he could help you out in more ways than just saving your life, even if it was just touching. As you reach your hand down to find your panties soaking, a wave of guilt washes over you, and your mind tears at the seams. 

_You just want to be held. Was picturing fucking another man being unfaithful?_ You're disgusted with yourself. You'd only known the pilot who was going to be helping your kidnapper and executor out, and you wanted to fuck him. Maybe you are an easy little slut, and Manson would be better off without you. 

You feel your eyes well up, squandering any trace of arousal. Thoughts of Tobias are replaced by Manson looking down at you as he fucks you from on top, vignettes of him whispering your name, holding you close, satisfying you better than anyone ever could, and the cold ache of guilt disappears. You want that, but you're confused, scared and alone, and you just want to go home, even if home meant on the road with your boyfriend. Your lower lip trembles as Tobias enters your thoughts again. What if he was instructed to say what he did to you by Skold, to mess with your head? Skold doesn’t strike you as the type of wolf who plays with his food, but you could never be sure. Usually Manson called these shots, not you. You never had to worry about being wrong about anything. A single tear spills over, and you wipe it away quickly.

 _No. Now isn’t the time for tears._ _Now is the time to get pissed, and do something about it._ Something you had learned from Manson from the get-go was you could only trust yourself. After years of honing your character judgment, it seems to you that Tobias had your best interest at heart, but the only way for you to be sure was to take matters into your own hands. If your plan was to work, Tobias would also be able to escape unharmed the next day either way, which was the best case scenario. He’d understand.

You get up as quietly as possible, and check the spot on the stool where Skold had left his belt of weapons after polishing and loading them earlier. It wasn’t there anymore. _Of course it wasn’t, he’s not stupid._

You creep along the floor, thankfully missing any creaking floorboards. The blizzard outside seems to have died down at least a little, which also worked in favor of your plan. You look around, moving onto plan B of the weapons part… then you see it. A small handgun on the table beside the bed. You wince, and creep over as quietly as possible.

_Fuck._

A floorboard creaks as your injured ankle buckles, and the sleeping form in the corner bed rouses a little. You hold still, eyes wide in the darkness, and wait. When he doesn’t make another move and falls back into his soft snoring, you continue to creep even more carefully toward the night table. You wonder where Tobias is, and if he can see you. He could come with you if he noticed you up, but as of now, it seems like everyone was asleep in their own little corner of this shack but you.

You reach forward toward the gun, just a little more on your toes… Your breath hitches as he shifts again, and you duck. All you can see is what the moonlight provides through the small cracked window, but still, Skold seems to be asleep. You bite your bottom lip, and reach even further… until you feel the butt of the gun in your hand, and you snatch it up.

In a split second, you have the gun hovering inches above his head. You remember Manson’s hands around you, on your hips then back up to your fingers, guiding you, teaching you gently how to hold, aim and fire before he fucked you on the floor. You look down at your sleeping kidnapper, not too bad of a guy under different circumstances, concealed by the blankets he had piled on over him. You didn’t have to worry about aim this time.

You pull the trigger, and blood splatters everywhere in a disgusting burst. You let out a gasp, head spinning. You close your eyes for a moment, willing the nausea away, and drop the gun on top of the now-still, messy corpse. _So this is why assassins typically shot from a distance._

You grab the parka that belonged to the dead man, throwing it on and doing it up fast. Getting into boots that had been left at the foot of the bed and looking behind you, you grab the fireplace poker from the hearth and toss open the door to hurry out. You notice there are already fresh boot prints leading outside from in. You don’t have time to dwell on that—you let the door bang open wildly, and limp your way out.

You see the helicopter in the distance and turn in the opposite direction, then get to a small ridge, where you can make out the way down. You had no idea how to get down from here or how long it would take, but anything was better than waiting around to see if you would be killed tomorrow. With a noise of exertion, you stab the poker as far as it will go into the icy wall, and start to climb your way down like that. You’re almost halfway down the ridge, but make the mistake of looking down.

“Oh shit,” you mutter, vertigo hitting you, and you scramble to keep your grip on the poker. Your right boot flies out to steady yourself against the ice, but it’s too big for your foot—you slip out of it, and let go of the poker, falling at least three stories.

Clouds part in the skies, and the ever present wind continues to whistle. You lay unconscious on the icy ridge, sub zero weather turning your cheeks redder by the second. The boot, two sizes too big for you, lies next to you.

In your haste to make your escape, you hadn’t noticed these boots you had stolen from the sleeping corpse had been navy blue snow boots, not black.


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter: Odds Of Even 
> 
> The ending is extended by a chapter- the last update will be tomorrow!

Your eyes open on a bar. It’s the bar you used to work at, and it’s a slow night. 

Glancing around, you see everything on the walls you used to look at every night. The light up beer signs, the ads for local bands that seemed to get plastered over with new ones every other day. You turn to see if all the glasses had been stacked the way you used to stack them… they were, all in the same spot you would leave your side work when you were finished a shift. You turn around to see someone sitting at the previously empty bar.

_“I’m punching out.”_ Your old friend’s voice startles you. _“You get to hear about this poor guy’s long painful breakup, how she took his favorite lipstick in the divorce, or whatever he’s down and out about.”_ You watch as she moves past you, giving you a weird look. _“What’s up with you? You look stoned or something.”_

You would respond in the negative, but you can’t seem to get your mouth to move. Your eyes once again fall to the man at the bar. It’s Brian, dressed how he was the night you two had first met.

 _“So what are you good at making?”_ he asks you. You blink, and he inclines his head at your dreamlike silence. _“’s alright... I’m not too good at making stuff either, which is why I’m here. I’ll take a double vodka.”_

As if going through the motions, you watch yourself from some omniscient POV get the drink ready for him. You want to scream at him that it’s you, that you’re his girlfriend and you two have been through years and countless near death experiences together. But it’s as if he doesn’t know you at all, right back to where you two started.

 _“So what’s a nice place like this… doin’ round a girl like you?”_ he asks. You go to attempt a reply, but when you blink, it’s not Manson sitting there anymore. It’s Twiggy.

 _“I didn’t see this coming,”_ he says, his voice low and worried as the day he first said it. _“I know how to handle situations like these, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m really scared of this person.”_ Apprehension builds inside of you, and the person contorts again. This time, Pogo grins his smarmy smile up at you.

 _“Brian. Jeordie’s gonna bring you nothing but bad luck,”_ he says, standing up. _“When I bring you to him? What you’ll get caught up in will ruin this whole thing. Whatever life you’ve got going here with her? Gone. Like that.”_ He snaps his fingers, and turns into Brian again before you as his voice carries on. _“Then again…”_ Brian smiles up at you, his own voice taking over. _“I always did enjoy wrecking a good thing.”_

You jolt awake, and realize all at once you can actually feel your body. Looking around, you notice that you’re not outside snowed under a drift with frostbite. You’re back in the cabin.

_Did Tobias find you and bring you back…?_

“Good morning.” You look over to the chair opposite the bed, and your heart nearly stops.

_No._

Skold stares at you, leaning forward. You go to rub your eyes or thrash your body to make sure you aren’t still dreaming. As you do, you tug instead on tighter restraints, each wrist tied to a bedpost.

“Excuse the mess,” Skold says. “But I suppose you have yourself to thank for that.” You frown in confusion, then with dawning horror, you look down to realize you’re in the same bed as the corpse you had blown the head off of last night. You begin to scream. “Oh, he’s disposed of,” Skold tells you. “I wouldn’t put you in bed with a dead body. This isn’t the Godfather.” He gestures outside languidly. “He’s out there in a snow bank somewhere, turning nice and blue. I couldn’t really get the bloodstains out, however.” He pours himself a cup of coffee out of a thermos, and a wolf howls for its pack outside in the distance. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t have the patience to try.”

Your screams turn to sobs, as you realize what you’ve done. Tobias must have been the one you had shot in the bed last night, not Skold, and with him, your hope of getting out of here alive. Bitter defeat washes over you, consuming what little hope you had tried to escape with the night before.

“I was keeping watch last night of course,” Skold tells you, answering some unasked question with a shrewd smile. “Perks of my Antichrist days, I don’t sleep well at night. Not from guilt, or bullshit like that. My mind…” He points to his head, his finger resembling a gun far too much for your comfort, “Is trained that way now. Especially when I’m waiting for a team of fellow assassins to come and try to find every loophole they can to whisk you away.” He pats his hip. “I sleep with a gun, as it were. Evidently so did Tobias, and that was a fatal mistake.” You choke out another sob, and Skold stands. “Maybe next time you would think twice before you make such rash decisions. I say _would_ , because unless Manson shows up in two hours, you’ll be collecting frost out there with my dead pilot. I hope for your sake a miracle occurs, and he decides to save the one good thing he has going for him.”

\---

Tyler Bates stands at the sliding doors of his sitting room, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a smartphone. He’s overlooking the pool in his yard, where a long black, coffin shaped floatie casually bumps the deep end. A gift from Manson. Tacky, but Bates has actually used the damn thing once or twice.

A voice comes through on the other end, and he’s drawn back into the conversation with an aggravated sigh. “I thought I told you. Reeves is on the next job. No, no, no…”

Outside, the guards who patrol his grounds make their normal rounds, while his static ones stay positioned at the corners of the building. Bates has a list of enemies, and even if he didn’t, he would be a fool not to employ protection.

“Listen up. I said it once, I’ll say it again for the last time. If I have to come out to Paris to skull-fuck them myself, I will…. Alright, then take ‘em all out! Nobody’s infiltrating anything over here— Vista’s secure, even more so now. I’m still cleaning up the mess from the last time that happened, and the asshole is taking his time on that, let me tell you.” He checks his watch. “Yeah.”

As he deals with the business call, he hears the creak of the door behind him. Turning, he looks down to see what he could only describe as a bigger handful than running a cartel: Ruvi.

“Shoo,” he whispers, and Ruvi blinks at him. Bates cringes, and pulls the phone away from his ear. “Honey, you’re gonna have to come back later, alright? I fed you! Twice! Fair is fair!” Ruvi blinks, hops up on the desk, and begins to scratch a painting on the wall behind it. Bates sighs, watching the tiny cat’s nail tear a long rip in the priceless canvas. “You want attention, huh? Be a nice kitty, I’ll let you sit in my lap. Yeah? Pretty kitty?” Bates suddenly frowns, lifting the phone back up higher. “Not you, dickface!” He goes to sit down at his desk and pick up Ruvi. The cat hisses at him, and Bates throws up his hands. “Look, I’m gonna have to call you back, Dave.” He drops his phone, and looks down at the cat. “You’re lucky you sleep in your bed and don’t fly around like a bat out of hell like most cats do at night. Good thing animals don’t set off my system.” Bates huffs. “But you haven’t figured that out yet, thankfully. Now, if your dad thinks he’s gonna saddle me with you next time he goes to conduct ‘business’ with (y/n)… he’s not as smart as I thought.” he boots Ruvi out of his seat and shakes his head. “ _Business_. He’s probably out buying Thai Stick halfway across the world in my jet.”

\---

The jet indicates that it’s made it past the Canadian border. It’s offline from any tracking device, military or otherwise, so no one knows they’ve entered Canadian airspace.

Manson studies the navigational controls. “Pogo’s message must have meant a glacier. That’s the closest thing to arctic they’ve got here.”

“Which glacier?” Twiggy asks. “There’s a lot of them, according to this stupid GPS.”

“I’ve never been here so I have no clue, but we’d better find it soon. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive at this point, and if she’s alive, I don’t know for how much longer. I’m in the dark.”

“Why couldn’t he have a safe house in the Bahamas? It’d be nice to die someplace warm,” Twiggy mutters.

“You’re not dying today, don’t be a dick.”

The group falls into silence for a while, doing their part to search out the window for the glacier they were supposed to drop onto. 

“This feels just like it did before,” Ginger mentions, standing behind John’s seat and looking out down below at the village and some residential homes. “With you guys, y’know?”

“Sort of,” John says. “The difference is, I won’t hesitate to punch Manson is he fucks with me.”

“You didn’t hesitate then,” Twiggy mentions.

“True, but he had more of a chance of beating me up in return back then. Remember the roof in Berlin a few days ago?” Manson’s fingers tighten on the chair.

“I had a little champagne that night.”

“You had a lot of champagne back in the day, and you still fought better than that,” John laughed.

“Careful 5. I’m bigger than you, I can sit on your face.”

“And make me lick your asshole again?”

“You liked it.”

“It wasn’t bad.” John ducked his head, grinning. “It wasn’t bad.”

“Hey. Didn’t you say you still know Trent, Twig?” Ginger asks. Absentmindedly, Twiggy tuned into the conversation.

“Yeah. Trent’s changed since our days. At least a little. He’s more into the philanthropy side of things now,” Twiggy says. “He likes to keep tabs, though. Wanted me to find shit on you guys, actually.” Manson takes interest in this.

“On us?” Ginger asks. “Why?”

“Never told me. You never know who’s gonna take out who in this business, I guess.”

“He thought one of us was gonna,” Ginger puts a finger gun up to his temple, “Take him out?”

“He’s more paranoid than I thought,” Manson laughs.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe he just wanted to see who was still alive. He got sentimental sometimes. Can’t blame the guy.” He looks away from the window. “He had me look you up,” Twiggy tells Manson. “He had me do some digging, steal some encrypted info from someone on you.”

“Trent misses me that much?”

Twiggy shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. The info I found got destroyed before it reached him.”

“You sure about that?” Manson asks, raising an eyebrow. Twiggy smirks at him.

“Yeah. I destroyed it.” He stews for a minute. “I wonder what it would be like to delete all my info too. Go off the grid.”

Manson scoffs. “We had this talk, back in ’98.”

“I didn’t think I was gonna die back then.”

“Fuck, Twig, you’re not about to die. Besides, Pogo did that, and trust me, it did not end pretty. It ended gross. He was gross.”

“Yeah, but say I’m still sane, alright? Say I actually survive this—”

“You will.”

“Shut up. I just wanna fuck off. I don’t know where my life would take me. I’ve got all this training and martial arts shit behind me, I could go anywhere and not worry about anything. Weird idea, I know. But it’s been so many years of this. Seems like a cool thing to think about. Fantasize about, I guess.”

“I thought of doing that,” John mentions. “I think everyone has at one point or another, Jeordie. Whether you do it before you get killed… that’s another story.”

“You’ve thought about it?” Ginger asks softly.

“Once. But this is what I do.” John nods. “One day I’m got to go out like a badass, man. Doing what I do.”

“Why do we keep talking about going out?” Manson asks. He’s on edge, unwilling to accept the possibility of anyone’s death today. Everyone recognizes his indignation, letting their answers die in their mouths. 

The jet is quiet for a little bit, the only sound between them the hum of the engine. Everyone feels as if they’re walking on eggshells now, but of course it’s the boldest of the group that ventures to speak first.

“What do you think it’ll be like to see him again? Skold?” John asks. Twiggy looks up, waiting for Manson’s answer. Everyone seems to be hanging on it too. Manson purses his lips, cocks his head.

“Fuck it. He’ll be too dead for it to matter.”

Sure. He could go with that. Nobody wanted to say out loud what they all knew to be true: it would be (y/n) or Twiggy. No chance of cutting a deal.

“Hey… Mans. I’m sure (y/n) is okay,” Ginger offers. “She seemed like she could handle herself in Berlin.” Manson knows you better than anyone on the jet does, and he knows that you can handle yourself. Of course you can. But it would take a lot for you to build up the courage to do anything significantly dangerous, and it kills him that he can’t be there to help you carry that out.

Suffice to say, he’s worried.

“Sure,” Twiggy offers too, interrupting his worry. “We’ve got her back, and we’ve got yours. Skold doesn’t stand a chance.”

“He’s not getting to you either,” Manson says, sticking a finger in Twiggy’s face. Twiggy swats it away.

“(y/n)’ll be okay,” John says, putting a hand on Manson' shoulder and squeezing. He looks awfully sure of himself. Manson almost believes him.

Ginger finally points out a small structure on top of one mountain, and Manson programs descent into the controls of the autopilot plane. As they get closer, they can make out two forms moving along a flat surface on the peak.

It’s 2:57 PM, and you’ve resigned yourself to your death. Your cheeks are tearstained, and though your fists are clenched, they’re shaking with fear. At least you know you tried to escape. You couldn’t have known what you were doing—it was late, you were desperate. It had quite literally been a shot in the dark.

Skold leads you along the precipice. “Since we no longer have a pilot, and I can’t fly a helicopter,” Skold tells you, clucking his tongue, “We will have to improvise your death.” He looks over the precarious edge. “Quite a fall. If I’m lucky, it will kill you.”

“We can only hope,” you try to retort wittily, but there’s no hiding the waver in your voice.

Snow blows up in a gust, and a large shadow passes over the snow around you. The both of you look over. A jet is landing beside the cabin.

“Just in time,” the blonde growls in your ear.

“Alright,” Manson says inside, “You know the plan—first I try to bargain, which won’t work. Ginger, you stay in the jet, and when I give the signal, you take the shot. Please try to do it accurately, before Skold kills my girlfriend. Use your… good eye, or whatever.”

“They’re both good. The one under the patch is bionic, wanna see?”

“Wh—no! Why do you wear the patch th— you know what? Fine. John, Twiggy? Keep cool, and let me do the talking. Don’t move, don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”

“Solid.”

“Got it, Bri.”

The hatch opens, and the group is met with frigid air as they step out.

“Skold!” Manson shouts, and you physically see him tense up and mutter under his breath. He’s probably swearing about how fucking cold it is, and reaming either John or Ginger for not reminding him to bring a coat. A wistful smile warms over your nerves. You would have reminded him.

“Manson!” Skold walks you forward a couple of feet. “It has been a lifetime, hasn’t it?”

“(y/n),” Manson says in relief, ignoring the pleasantries of the man holding you. You go to respond in relief, but Skold tugs you back. 

“Ah, ah. It’s 2:58, and I still don’t see my hit.” Inside the jet, Ginger turns to load his sniper rifle. He hears the others exits the jet behind him, and Twiggy comes into view of the enemy. “Ah. He’s arrived,” Skold calls, and walks forward with you. “Good! I was beginning to think you’d be a no show. No shows are no fun.” Your eyes dart around, trying to figure out what sort of plan they had in place. Ginger hadn’t come out with the other two, so he must have something to do with it. Hopefully it involved those deadly looking knives he had accidentally attacked you with in Germany—it would bring you immense pleasure to see Skold impaled on one or both of them.

Beside you, Skold looks to Twiggy and John. He narrows his eyes. “I respect you Manson! I always have.”

Manson frowns. “Thank you?”

“—So I would expect the same amount of respect in return. Where is the rest of your party?” Your heart leaps into your throat. Manson pauses, and inside the jet, Ginger looks up. He couldn’t be talking about him. Skold continues on calmly. “There were five of you, including your lovely girlfriend, in your flat when I took her. I took the initiative of taking a headcount… for situations like these, you see. Forgive me, but this headcount wasn’t apt to change. I understand you, Manson, would wish to take care of this alone, but from the camaraderie I remember from the good days of the Antichrist, that sentiment would not go far.” Skold gives a cold smile. “Where is Ginger?”

“Ginger didn’t come.”

Skold cocks the gun at your head, and you suck in a breath. Manson steps forward a little. Ginger steps out of the jet before Manson can make the difficult decision himself, and folds his arms. “Tim.”

“There we are! I love the eye patch.” Ginger grumbles something, and tosses it off.

_“Not even fucking useful…”_

“Over you go. Come on.” Skold gestures with his other gun for him to join Manson, and you see the glint of platinum hair to your right. It’s John. You meet his eyes in secret, and get an idea.

“There’s a storm coming,” you whisper.

Skold frowns. “Are you really threatening me?”

“No, it’s an observation. The clouds are rolling in, you’d better hurry if you want to get down by the evening. Think of transporting the body—nobody’s gonna wanna do it in an ice storm, not even for a wad of cash.” Skold looks for a split second over the mountains in the distance, but shrugs it off.

“I am in control of it.”

“You’re in control of the weather?”

“Stay still and hush, do you want me to shoot you by accident?” Skold looks back to Manson in exasperation, then nods to Twiggy. “Alright, Manson. Him for the girl.”

Twiggy looks more annoyed than afraid. “God, I would do anything to smack that smug smile off your face, you egotistical prick.”

Skold cocks his gun. “Speak your mind, Jeordie. Get your last words out.” The implication stings you. You feel so inert—you wish you could do something, but Skold is right. If you move a muscle out of line, he could shoot you. Jeordie scoffs.

“Thanks, I think I will speak my mind. The last ten years have been shit for me, because of you. I didn’t talk to the people who meant something to me, because of you. Because of you, I thought the people I now know have my back, hated me.”

“Somebody does hate you, or you and I would not be reuniting under such circumstances,” Skold says, gesturing down at his gun. “But without the clearance to reveal who that person is, I must admit I too will take a _little_ personal pleasure in ending your life as well.”

He looks to Manson. You see Ginger scan his surroundings, obviously trying to locate John. They had had a plan in place, it had failed, and though the group was good at improvising, Skold now had the upper hand. If they didn’t get back on the same page, more than one person would die on top of this glacier. The wind whips, singing eerily over the snow. The rolling slopes shifted in wait, waiting for a corpse to disturb their sinister calm.

“Do the right thing, Manson. Send him over here, and I will let her go.”

“Let her go, and we’ll talk.”

“Twiggy dies.”

“Tensions are high.”

“They certainly are.”

“Talk to me first.”

“There,” Skold whispers to you, “You see? You see where his priorities lie?”

“What are you trying to prove?” you whimper, held tight back against him. “He’s doing what he can.”

“That is not enough for you, is it?” Skold aims his second gun right at Twiggy, and Manson pulls out his own gun. Ginger follows suit. You lament the clusterfuck of what could have been the perfect ambush. Where the hell was John?! Hadn’t you seen him a second ago, sneaking around?

You could cut through the tension with a knife. Skold’s gun is aimed, as is Manson’s and Ginger’s in standoff. You’re caught right in the middle of all of it, and you don’t think you’ve ever been so stressed in your life. Manson speaks again, his voice low and steady.

“Tim. Send her over. You know she’s not involved in this.”

“Allow me to state the obvious. She is involved with you, which means she is valuable. Your boy has an explosive on him and decides to take me out too when he comes over? I need her to ensure that does not happen.”

The blonde holds you perilously at the glaciers edge. The suspense is finally broken when Twiggy steps forward. Manson looks over to him, and seems to whisper something. You begin to feel lightheaded as you wonder what was happening. Was Twiggy giving in? _Would you be witnessing another murder first hand, the second in 24 hours?_ Ginger looks up to see something the others don’t see. He can’t move to do anything about it, or it would blow the cover.

“Stay behind me, Jeordie,” Manson says. Twiggy doesn't listen.

“I've always been the sacrifice, Maz. Ging was right when he said nothing’s changed.”

“Jeordie, get your sacrificial ass back here.”

“Bri. It's the only way you'll get (y/n) back.”

“We'll find another way,” Manson almost pleaded, expression devolving into one of desperation. Twiggy’s mind was made up.

“Doesn't look like Skold up for talking it out.” Before his ex-partner had a chance to reply, Twiggy walks out to you and Skold, up so close that the gun is touching his forehead. “Are we doing this here?” he asks.

“I'm very much over secondary locations at this point,” Skold replies. “So yes.”

“If I didn't have to volunteer to die, I wouldn't be walking right up to the barrel of your gun.” Twiggy gestures to you, alluding to your capture. You give him an apologetic look, wet with tears, but Jeordie’s gaze toward you is far from a spiteful one. Skold smirks.

“No honor among hitmen. You know that. She was fair game. I’m certain _Manson_ knew that.” He suddenly becomes wary of the proximity. “You’d better not have one of Ginger’s knives on you.”

Twiggy raises his eyebrows. “Damn. Why didn't I think of that?”

You close your eyes, squeezing them shut as you prepare for the gunshot. Your mind begins to countdown, bracing for the splatter you’d feel from the man your boyfriend cared so much for. But all that is shattered when the gun from your temple is removed and your captor spins around. Three shots are fired into the figure of a man standing behind you two. 

John falls to the snow **.**

Ginger shouts something you can't make out, and Tim Skold is suddenly a blur, riddled with bullets as the sharpshooter empties his cartridge from afar in retaliation. Twiggy stands, stunned but unharmed. Dropping his gun, Ginger runs over to John, slipping out his belt and giving it to the bleeding man. He takes one of his knives out in an attempt to cut the bullet out of him, however grotesque the task might be. The blond reaches to the side to take the belt, but never closes his hand around it. Ginger blinks down at him.

“John? John, come on…” John looks like he wants to say something, and Ginger drops his head to hear. All that escapes him is a lackluster wheeze, and a single, strung out thought:

_“Tell Rob I’m… sorry for missing the movie.”_

Ginger’s head drops lower to press against his partner’s chest. He rests on John's chest with one hand tightly gripping the limp hand of his friend. Twiggy is still too stunned to speak for a moment, but after he comes desensitized to the shocking sight before him, he musters up the words.

“That should have been me.” 

Manson stares down at the body, thinking back to all the people he'd killed like this. He feels his reaction bubbling up, feels the familiar tug of apathy that he usually employs in situations such as these. But right now, he doesn’t even have enough sense to discern emotion from strength. He regards all the blood, Ginger crying, and all he can do is pull you closer. It reminds him of Daisy Berkowitz, but this is different. John had done this himself, to save another. No accident. He had planned it. He had tried.

“It could have been any of us,” he responded to Twiggy.

John's body is wrapped up in the cerecloth that in their best case scenario had been meant for Skold. Instead, Skold was left to the wolves that had gathered at the smell of scattered blood. Poetic justice, really.

The four of you remaining carry John's body to a make-do pyre to burn. The storm you had pointed out earlier had dissipated before it reached you, and it was as if the night had granted you sanctuary; the sky was clear and perfect for fire. Twiggy piles the logs, and Manson gets the matches. Pouring some of the remaining whiskey over top of everything, he passes the bottle he’d found inside the cabin around, the bottle you know to have belonged to Tobias. Manson strikes the match, and there’s a collective breath as the flames catch and erase all traces of a man who was nothing more than a ghost. That’s all any of them were. Ghosts, standing around a bonfire to watch a ghost of their past burn with a part of each of them contained in the pyre. You shiver, and notice something around the side of the cabin.

Twiggy notices what you see as you walk over, and comes over to help. By your expression, he doesn't ask who it was. He just helps you lift him. You rest the body tenderly at the base of the pyre, respect evident in your intentions, and Manson looks at you. You keep your gaze trained ahead. He has his secrets, and you have yours. The day may come when you talk about it. It may not.

Letting it be, Manson puts his arms around you and kisses the top of your head. Beside him, he puts an arm around Twiggy, and holds the people who keep him human as close to his heart as he could get you.

\---

You sit with Manson by the fireplace, head on his chest. His hand strokes over yours. Twiggy had gone to bed somewhere on the opposite side of the cabin far away from the bed you had warned him about, and Ginger had gone to camp under the stars, to do some sort of strange self-communing meditation thing nobody was going to blame him for tonight. You snuggle closer to Manson, touch starved.

“I feel like a chapter of my life’s just closed,” Manson tells you in a rare moment of vulnerability. The honesty in his voice is sobering, a reflection you hadn’t been expecting. You had expected him to be silent until further notice—he always drew in on himself when he was upset. Instead, he watches the flames of the fire eat up the remaining wood, and adds to his confession.

“I never told him, but I always envied John. Out of everyone, he was airtight. He seemed to always know where his head was, and he never lost it under pressure like say, Jeordie would. I lost it too at times, but mine wasn’t anything like a panic or anything. I would crack, just suffer complete psychotic breaks. Thankfully, I’m in the kind of work where that’s an asset. Fucking crazier you are, the easier it is to kill someone. Only difference was, I couldn’t tell anybody about it. I was alone, even on the team.” You snuggle closer, and he drags his finger up and down your palm, thinking. “John had confidence that almost rivaled mine.”

“Yeah,” you say, this standing out as something you had noticed about John off the bat.

“I hated him for it when I was younger, cause he had a lot of traits I couldn't get in touch with. Most of all, his humanity. Ginger saw it in him from the start, and respected him for it.” He shakes his head. “I didn't feel human back then, (y/n). I felt mechanical, like a killing machine. Sometimes I still feel like that. Killing strangers so I don't kill the ones that I love.” You look up at him, searching his expression. You notice a tear escape the corner of his eye. “He didn’t deserve to die.” You think of responding with, _‘none do,’_ but the experiences in past few years of your life have proved that statement to be chillingly false. “…I used to think John was the worst hitman for being the opposite of me. That’s fucking cocky of me. Now that he’s dead, I can see he was just different than me. He actually cared.”

“Where would we be if you didn't care?” you finally speak. “Twiggy and me?”

“If I had done what I should have done and kicked his ass out, you'd never have gotten into this mess with Skold, and we’d be safe at home.”

“But your best friend would be dead, and you wouldn't even know it. You'd be right back to wondering where the hell he disappeared to for the rest of your life.”

He stays quiet for a while. “Mm. I guess John made a sacrifice for more than just Twiggy.” He studies you. “Y’know, I promised myself if you ever had to pay the price for any of the shit I'm mixed up in, that would be it. I'd let you go. For your sake.”

You hold your breath, your stomach dropping. Even for your own good, even the idea of never seeing him again was worse than seeing him killed. “You can’t _let_ someone do something they don’t want to do. You have to make them.” When he doesn’t immediately respond, your nerves propel you to point something else out. “I haven’t even paid the price yet.”

“But you came damn close.”

“All you have to do is make sure you’ve always got me.”

“What if I can’t save you next time?”

“So,” you look down, holding just a little tighter on to his hand as your temper flares, “Fine then. What comes next? After all that, you’re gonna leave me?” 

You're distracted by the sound of an engine outside, and your eyes widen _. Backup for Skold?_ Manson reassures your thoughts, urging you to look. You get up with him, and notice outside there's a second jet waiting.

“You’re the one, (y/n). I’d rather get shot in the dick than leave you.” Manson picks up a gold switchblade Skold had left on the table, tosses it in his hand appreciatively, and begins to carve a message into the wall with it.

_Left the jet for you two. Whether we join John or not in the coming years, know that you’re my brothers… always. Burn this place when you're done with it._

Beneath, he carves a large symbol of the Antichrist syndicate: an inverted double lined cross. You two leave the cabin out into the chilly night air, and you don't stop to look at the half-eaten corpse that used to be Skold: you’d had enough horror up on this mountain for a lifetime, though you doubt it’ll be the last time you see carnage like this. In fact, you don’t stop to look back at anything; this era is dried up, tied, and dead to the world. You step through the bloody snow onto the extended platform, and Manson helps you up. Despite cutting the proverbial anchor, your thoughts remain with the two men you’re leaving behind. “We're never going to see them again, are we?”

Manson only responds with a kiss to your forehead. It was time to move on.

Rising in altitude, you watch the star-studded sky over the mountains as you fly over Whistler, a blanket of stars that made you think, for the first time in your little mess of life, of space. Other things on his mind, Manson pulls down a screen to call Bates. Business before pleasure, and business currently was thanking the man who had saved both of your asses.

“Thanks for sending a jet so late at night,” he says to the cartel boss, bereft of his usual sarcasm. “I'm also really glad you invested in auto pilot jets, cause I'm really fucking beat right now.” The image of Bates nods. 

“Think nothing of it. What are you doing in Canada with two jets?”

“Remember that business I told you about? You know, the business that was none of your business?”

“Careful,” Bates smirks, “I know you like to think nobody owns you, but I'm still your boss.” Still, at the lack of an informed answer, Bates lets it go.

“We're heading home now,” Manson goes on. “Back to LA. We've got some serious us time to indulge in before the next job, so don’t even think about giving me another job.”

“About that,” Bates grimaces. “Unfortunately I've got a small issue.”

“Bates, you asshole, you have no idea how fucking emotionally drained I am right now. I wanna cuddle my goddamn _cat_ and choke on my girlfriend’s panties—”

“I wouldn't put you on this if it wasn’t time sensitive, Manson. See, I had hired someone to take out this other lowlife who had stolen valuable information from our databases. The vitals I’ve been monitoring on him have gone dark—looks like he's been taken out himself.”

“Why didn't you just hire me in the first place?” Manson groans. “I’d have finished the job in an afternoon. I'm good at not getting killed.”

“So far,” Bates says. “To be honest, I wanted to avoid getting you caught up in this whole web of alliances. I'm told this person who stole our information had a range of ties, most notably to Trent Reznor. He was a big name to be feared in the 90s. Anyway, that's why I put a gun for hire on the job, and not anyone else from Vista. Especially not you—my best.” Manson begins to frown, caught on something Bates had said.

“Trent Reznor?”

Bates waves a hand. “Philanthropist. Runs a numerous amount of operations.”

“Bates. What was the name of the hit?” The question hangs in the air, seemingly for much longer than it takes Bates to answer.

“Name unknown of course.”

“Then what did he _go by_?”

“Twiggy.” With dawning shock, your suspicions are confirmed. Both you and Manson are silent how do you process what you just heard. Bates had been the one who hired Skold and put him on Twiggy. He had been the unwitting mastermind behind this web of espionage and threat. “--Anyway. I know I can count on you of all people to finish the damn job. You never hesitate to pull the trigger. Have you ever heard of this Twiggy guy before?” Bates waits for an answer. “Manson?”

“I'm on it,” is all Manson mumbles. He shuts the chat down, and stays seated. You don't have to ask to understand what he intends to do.


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for the chapter: Slo-Mo-Tion

You and Manson arrive at Bates’ mansion around 3 in the morning. All the lights in the house are off. Manson doesn't bother telling you to wait outside; at this point, you know what you're getting into. He does guide your steps, however. 

“Stay behind me,” he says in a hushed whisper. Not even associates of Bates can get onto his ground without his knowledge, so you would have to improvise. Now is the time Pogo would have really come in handy, but Manson of course wasn’t about to admit that. The hacker had done enough to help him even in death, or nudge him in the right direction at least. Manson supposes Pogo really did get the last laugh with that code in his journal; that madman knew how hard it was for Manson to admit he needed his help, so it was the ultimate catch 22 that he ended up needing it more than anything.

Crouching down, Manson gets something out of his belt. “Bates has got tripwires that only deactivate for him. If you touch this gate, it turns on every light in his stupid, ugly house.” You frown at the building.

“It’s not that ugly.”

“It’s a dumb multimillion dollar rectangle. At least get a multimillion dollar castle. Spend your money wisely, be the Dracula of the Hollywood Hills.”

“Right. Well, not everyone’s as clever as you are, Bri.” As he tries to brainstorm a way into this impending mission of certain injury, he thinks back to Twiggy's advice about the prints.

“(y/n). Do you have a pore strip?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Really? You're thinking of makeup right now?” He chuckles.

“I've been crying, I look like shit. If I'm going to do what I'm about to do, I need to look beautiful.” Despite his joke, he digs around in his belt, and produces his own pore strip to use for a very different reason. “Now. Bates has three guys on the west side of his property, three on the right…” He uses the pore strip to transfer the last fingerprint from the pad on to it, dusts a little of his vampirically pale powder to define it, then turns it around, pressing it in again. The faint buzzing dies; the gates aren't unlocked, but the touch security is deactivated. He then gets out a silver object that looks like a cylindrical canister, about the size of his hand.

“Please tell me that’s not lipstick,” you mutter. He grins.

“I can distract the three on the west with this _smoke bomb_ while I take care of the guards on the east.” You feel a rush of confidence, and before you know what you’re saying, you blurt:

“Let me take care of the guards on the west side.”

Manson looks up at you like you're crazy. “You can barely walk. Look at your fucked up foot. And you can't aim!”

“I killed someone up on the glacier, you know.” He almost looks impressed. Almost.

“Would have been nice if it was Skold.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, “Would have been.” Footsteps crunch nearby, and Manson pulls you down. “Throw it,” you hiss.

“Your—”

“Throw it, _do it_!” He's left with no choice but to do just that. He throws the bomb over the hedge, holds on to you, and grapples over. With the grim look of someone who wants to argue but has no time to, Manson hands you a silencer gun and goes off toward the east of the property. Favoring your injured heel, you hide behind some bushes. The more you think of it now, the more you see what a stupid idea this was. Manson’s right. You can barely walk, you’re still traumatized from the past three days, and you don’t know a thing about doing what he does. Still… you’d kill for him.

Your heartbeat starts to pick up as your thumb slides along the cool metal in your hands. The last time you had held a gun, it was—

You shut your eyes, willing the memory away. Now was not the time to develop any kind of post traumatic stress. You could do that once the sun came up, if you were still lucky enough to be breathing. 

The guards immediately notice the billowing smoke rising from your hiding spot. Fortunately for you, they’re lost in it in seconds.

“There’s been a breach—” one begins to say, but you shoot him before you know what you’re doing. _Lucky shot._ You suppose your haste is a blessing; no chance for nerves, and the shot was a good icebreaker. Feeling a little more confident now, you hold your position in the bushes, and watch the second guard take out his gun. You narrow your eyes, watching his every move. Even though smoke continues to billow around you, you feel as though you can see even the slightest hair on his arm move. You aim, and fire.

_Fuck! It’s a miss._

“I did not sink your battleship,” you mutter to yourself, the pounding footsteps of the guards drowning out your quip. You duck again, but he's seen where the shot came from. You crawl on your knees from the bush as shots are fired from his own silencer. Leaves blow up behind you, but you're still in one piece. You look up, and see that you’re right beneath the guard’s crotch in the cloud of milky smoke. Taking a deep breath, you pull the trigger. Thankfully, the package you just shot was tightly bound in heavy-duty gear, so you hadn't given yourself a bloody shower in taking care of him.

There's only one guard left, but you can't see him. You’re now either a wolf in the fold, or a sitting duck. It’s up to the smoke to decide which one. Three bullets whiz through the air, but they miss you. Fear once again tightens its grip on you. You still don’t know where the guard is, and it’s not like you can run. 

Over on the east side of the property, Manson hides behind the wall. At the right moment, he ambushes the first guard, breaking his neck and catching him before he falls into the pool. He lays him down, and darts toward the next guard. This one is more aware of her surroundings. She whips around, and grabs his wrist. Manson tries to break her grip, but she's too strong. They engage in quick hand-to-hand combat, until Manson thinks way too fast than is normal for someone who drank as much as he did earlier. He drops the gun from his immobile hand to his hand beneath, and shoots her once in the stomach. Her mouth opens in anguish, but he shoots her once more in the head before she can warn anybody with any noise. There's a crack behind him, and he narrowly misses a bullet with a roll. He grimaces, getting back up. He definitely isn't as agile or light on his feet as he was before, but he’s still the best damn hitman in the business. If only Bates knew what was coming for him, he’d have a SWAT team out here for protection.

Manson kicks the guy’s shins out from under him, uses his knife to sever the top of his spinal chord, and unload three shots into the back of the guy’s head. He drops the knife like a mic drop. “Boom,” he smiles, unable to deny the thrill. He inclines his head your way.

You crawl until you hit a wall. _Fuck. Walls don’t move, so neither can you._ The smoke is starting to dissipate, and that's bad. You'll be found out any second, cornered and inviting bullets. The air finally clears, but with relief, you see that the guard is facing away from you, still searching the bushes. “Copy. Copy, C Taylor four. No eyes on the intruder. Joey, you there?” He turns back to look for his back up, and gets the butt of a gun to the face. You grimace at the mess.

“I'm sure you’re a nice guy,” you mutter apologetically. Manson comes over unharmed to you, and you hold the gun out to him as if it's something dirty. “Here. You do it.” C. Taylor, as his nametage reads, groans on the ground in protest, and Manson shoots him. He looks over to you, at your mussed hair and heaving chest, and bites his lip. You saunter up to him, pulling him in by the collar. He cops a feel of your ass, and you nip his jaw.

“Keep your eyes on the prize.” You limp toward the door, and he follows you.

You two get to the mansion’s entrance, and with Corey’s stolen credentials, you try to scan in. Something red blinks, and you look down. You need his fingerprint. Manson disappears for a moment, and comes back with a finger.

“Don’t make a fingering joke,” you growl.

“Gross.”

“Yeah. You couldn't have kept that shit attached?” you ask.

“I'm not about to drag the dude over here. Did you see him?! He was buff as fuck!”

“In the neck maybe,” you mention offhand, and Manson scans the finger in. The door slides open, and you walk inside. Manson and you look around, turning to see a hallway. There are cameras everywhere, but no one to monitor them any longer.

“This way,” he mutters. He supports your walking with his arm.

“You know where you're going?”

“Nah, I've never been in here. But that's a laser hallway if I've ever seen one, and laser hallways always protect shit.” Sure enough, as you approach, you trigger it—a maze of lasers almost invisible to the naked eye protecting the hallway’s passage. Manson programs something into the keypad, and they disappear once more. 

“How did you know?” you whisper.

“He told me this one, cause he thought he was being clever.” Manson grins. “666. We'd better be fast about it though. The code changes on second attempt, and Bates had no reason to mention that one.” You start to walk through first, then freeze as you see something with big blue eyes move in front of you. _It's Ruvi_. “Shit,” Manson mutters. “Baby! Baby, don't move. Stay still for us, sweetheart!” Ruvi, ever the rebel, goes to take one step. On reflex, you move to stop her, which triggers the beams. You squeeze your eyes shut, preparing for grotesque dismemberment, but you're right in the middle of the maze, just missing any singe-worthy beams. Manson breathes out in relief, but not for long. Your hair is starting to singe behind you. “Why would she come out?” Manson mumbles absently, trying another combination.

“What do you mean?” you breathe.

“She always either sleeps in her bed or with the person she's with. You never noticed?”

“I fall asleep faster than you do,” you reply. “I guess that's how she keeps from setting these detectors off at night, though. She must have recognized our voices this time.”

“Maybe. That, or Bates was smart enough to make sure his system recognizes pets. He knows he’s my go-to cat sitter.”

“How are the codes going?”

“Working on it.” Ruvi meows, and Manson and shakes his head. “No no, sweetheart. _Shhh_ , stay for daddy! Daddy’s evil little princess, you stay right there!” Living up to her titles, Ruvi makes a move to jump over a laser beam, and Manson nearly loses his shit along with you. 

“Ruvi!” you hiss. “Oh my god.” You start to feel your good leg falter, and hold in a horrified scream as your wavering balance causes your bad ankle to touch the laser. You begin to drip blood onto the floor, and Manson works faster.

“Got it, got it!” he finally announces, and gets up quickly, running down the hallway and supporting you.

“How did you figure this one out?” you breathe, the repressed pain making your head spin.

“I figured that the best way to keep people guessing is lying. Saying there’s a second code automatically eliminates the chances of someone trying the first code a second time, which I just did.”

“Smart.”

“I know.”

You get to the end of the hallway together just in time, and you scoop Ruvi up in your arms. In his bedroom, Bates rouses in the dark. An alarm is softly sounding on his phone, enough to draw him out of his deep sleep. He looks over at it, to see an alert of movement from his cameras.

“Peruvia?” he groans out, “Is that you? Fucking… bad cat.”

Manson stalls, and moves you and Ruvi into a closet off the side of the hallway. He pulls his shirt up over his face and pops his collar, in case Bates gets a glimpse. Not that it mattered. Bates gets out of bed, picks up his gun from the dresser, and walks out. “Where’d—” Manson rushes him, but Bates is fast. He whips around, firing a shot. Manson dodges it, but you cover your mouth in the closet. He takes advantage of the man’s sleepy state, and knees him in the stomach before successfully knocking him out.

A few moments go by. Manson opens the closet door, and you sigh when you see he’s safe. He’s got something in his hands he’s taken from the bedroom drawers.

\---

Bates comes to, eyes opening on a starry sky. His senses come back; he hears night bugs, the howl of coyotes in the surrounding hills, and the stinging scent of chlorine. He realizes where he is, and casts his gaze around. You and Manson stand at the side of the pool.

“What… Manson?” he breathes out. “Oh, you scared the hell out of… how did you get…” He falters. “How'd you get in here? And why am I tied to this thing!?” He jerks in his bindings.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Manson calls out. “Pool’s filled with cyanide.”

“What?!”

Manson laughs. “Nah it’s not, I’m fucking with your head.” His smile wanes. “But you’ll sink like a rock if you do try and flip off that thing.” Bates looks down to the wires tied tightly around his ankles and wrists, and realizes he’s right. “The guy you hired to kill Twiggy. What was his name?”

“What?”

“Don’t make me go all Pulp Fiction on you.”

“What's this all about? The new guy I sent you after?”

“Just tell me.”

“I don't remember.” Manson shoots the water beside him, dangerously close to the flotation device that will pull him under if deflated. “Oh, fuck!” Bates realizes Manson is serious, and swallows. “Uh… Skold? His name was Skold. I really don't remember his first name. He was just a gun-for-hire, like I said!”

Manson cocks his gun again. “His name is Tim. You didn’t do your research, did you? That’s one thing I’ll say about Trent, back in the day. When he wanted to know shit, he was thorough. You’ve just got a bunch of lackeys to do it for you.” He gestures around. “Dead lackeys.”

“So what?” Bates snaps. “What the fuck do I care about a guy named Tim who I hired to kill some other idiot, who you’re gonna kill now?”

“Watch your words.”

Bates raises his eyebrows, and huffs. “If you’re here, I assume you’ve killed Twiggy already. Am I right? Or are you making a pit stop here first?” Manson shoots near the other side of the floatie, making Bates shriek and blink water out of his eyes.

“(y/n), he’s got a good idea there. I could use some drive-thru McDonald’s. It’s open 24 hours, you know.”

“Later,” you purr, stroking the cat on your lap with a smirk. Bates, as if noticing you for the first time, turns to you.

“Oh, god. (y/n). You’re the reasonable one. Look at this shit! Untie me. We’ll have drinks. Manson— everything can be worked out before you head off to do the next job.”

“I tied you up for a reason, you stupid prick,” Manson mutters. “I’m not gonna untie you so we can have drinks while I tell you why I did it. And I’m not heading off to the next job.” Bates looks back to you pleadingly, but you simply lift your chin in indifference. His bargaining falls on deaf ears; he must be crazier than Manson if he thought you’d help him.

“What the hell is going on?!” Bates yells. “If this is about your assignment, you can sit this one out then—”

“Tim Skold, the man you hired who is now dead, used to be my friend. Until he kidnapped my girlfriend and almost put a bullet in my former partner. Then he stopped being my friend, but I still have a couple left.”

“Your f-- oh for fuck's sake...” Bates thrashes again, then steadies himself with pursed lips as water floods onto the bottom part of the floatie. “Manson? Wait.”

“I don’t appreciate you trying to have the few friends I do have left killed, Bates.”

“Hey—hey. I didn't know. You know I didn’t know.”

“Sure. I don’t hold it against you,” Manson said. “You know if it was anyone else, I wouldn’t do a damn thing. But it’s cold blooded, Bates. And you know as good as any, if it’s a calculated kill, you can’t talk your way out of it. Fair is fair.” He steps to the edge of the pool. “The intimidation game all boils down to this. While you're alive, the closest thing I have to a brother is in danger. And I can’t have that.” He aims the gun. 

“This… this is ridiculous,” Bates stammers. “Manson, we’ve known each other for years! I got you back in when you were down and out!” You observe his movements as he tries to wriggle his wrists free, but the wire only cuts deeper. Bates swears under his breath, realizing the only way out of this was to talk the hitman down. “I’m your friend!”

“Like I said! My circle just keeps getting smaller and smaller.”

“Manson, you know the life! People like Twiggy die all the time… fuck, shit…” He tries desperately to pick at the wires, bloodied from his attempts. 

“True. But people like (y/n) don’t. And that was going fuckin’ happen if Twiggy isn’t who he is, and decided to save his own ass. That’s what I can’t forgive. Nobody fucks with my girl. Not the people I know…” Manson gestures to the nervous man with his gun, “not the people I once knew… and not strangers.”

“MANSON!”

With a clean, precise shot, Manson pulls the trigger, and shoots the flotation device, watching Bates kick as he sinks beneath the surface. His form sinks all the way to the bottom, bubbles rising as he tries in vain to escape his watery grave. You both watch the underwater struggle.

“I read once that statistically, more people survive drowning than gunshot wounds,” you whisper, laying your head on his shoulder. “Especially fatal ones.” Manson considers this with a hum.

“Mmm. You make a good point, babygirl.” He fires one more bullet down into the pool, and the two of you watch with a degree of satisfaction as the clear water turns red. Seconds tick by, and you lose track of who makes the first move as your hands are on his face and his lips are on yours.

“Missed this,” you growl, and he grazes his teeth over your bottom lip.

“Come here.” 

The two of you kiss again, all teeth and heated breath, walking backward through the open sliding doors and into Bates’ office. The backs of Manson’s legs hit the grand black desk, and he breaks contact, roughly turning you around and bending you over the desk.

“I’m gonna wreck you,” he growls, smoothing his hand up your back. “I need you so fuckin’ bad, I missed you so much.”

“I wanted you to take me like this since you laid hands on me today,” you breathe shakily, “I miss feeling your arms around me. Your hands on me.” He pulls your pants down and rolls your ass around in his hands. “Fuck me so hard, daddy.”

“Oh, I plan to babygirl,” he mumbles, giving the soft flesh a spank, “I just don't have the patience to take my time tonight… daddy’s gonna make you scream, huh?” He pushes into you deep, and you purr, grabbing at the edges of the desk as he runs his gun over the backs of your thighs.

“Please! Fuck, Bri...”

“You did so good out there,” he groans, “The thought of you killing those people. Seeing you with my fucking gun. I wanted to fuck you outside.”

“God, fuck me now, do it hard,” you groan, and his hips slap against you, going even deeper. It’s not long before the days without this catch up to you, and too wrecked to get proud over stamina, you don’t think Manson’s too far off either.

“I'm close.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too,” he grunts, using the gun to reach around and rub your clit. “Gonna cum for me?” You buck against it, and push back into Manson’s thrusts. He growls, losing patience and dropping the gun. Deepening the slamming of his cock into you, he leans over your back so he can cover you completely with his body. You close your eyes, feeling completely and utterly safe in his arms, and cum hard on his cock in record time. He feels you clenching around him, tightening around his length as his hips slap into your ass. He moans low, fondling you until you coax him to completion. He presses a kiss your neck, and stands. You fix yourself, and Manson turns you around, kissing you properly on the lips.

“It would appear Loma Vista is without a boss,” you say, trailing your finger down the tattoo in the middle of his chest. He glances behind you, and walks over. He sits down in the chair as the gravity of what this means hits him. It’s all his—he’d be in charge of it all, one of the most powerful men in LA with a violent reputation. He also has a girl who could give anyone a run for their money by his side, someone he’d protect to hell and back. Twiggy’s will to help, Ginger’s loyalty, and John’s sacrifice enter his mind as he feels, for the first time, truly appreciative of all those who stuck by his side. Maybe this is the closest he could get to happiness.

Your baby hops up onto the desk, and you smirk at the small white cat, taking a position of his side draped over his arm. He pats his lap instead, and you straddle him. He kisses you again, harder this time, smearing that blood red lipstick on your lips to match the marks all over your body. “Look at you,” you whisper, “This is your show.” He slides his arms over your shoulders, picking up his weapon. 

“And we got guns.” He trails his lips over your own, curling them up into a smirk. “Motherfuckers better run.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for coming on this wild ride with me, what was meant to be a simple smutty one shot became so much more! Hope you enjoyed the story. As always, I can be found on my tumblr @headoverhiddles if you wanna yell at me about the ending, or if you wanna message me and be my friend! I like friends a little more than Manson does! x


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